Churn Rate Calculator
Calculate customer churn rate and revenue churn rate for any period.
How to use this tool
- Enter customers at start of period, customers lost during period, mrr at start of period and mrr lost (churned revenue) in the fields above.
- Results update instantly as you type — or click Calculate.
- Read your customer churn rate and the full breakdown beneath it.
Churn rate is the percentage of customers (or revenue) lost in a period. High churn cancels out new customer growth — understanding and reducing churn is essential for sustainable SaaS businesses.
Formula
Customer Churn Rate (%) = (Customers Lost ÷ Customers at Start) × 100
Revenue Churn Rate (%) = (MRR Lost ÷ MRR at Start) × 100
Implied Average Lifespan (months) = 100 ÷ Customer Churn Rate (%)
How it works
This calculator computes two flavours of churn for a given period: customer churn (the percentage of customers who cancelled) and revenue churn (the percentage of MRR that was lost), then derives the implied average customer lifespan from the customer churn rate.
Revenue churn can differ from customer churn when lost customers had above- or below-average contract values. The implied lifespan formula (1 ÷ churn rate) is a mathematical approximation that assumes a constant churn rate each period and works best for monthly data.
Worked example
Worked example
- Customers at start = 500; customers lost = 50.
- Customer churn rate = (50 ÷ 500) × 100 = 10%.
- MRR at start = $25,000; MRR lost = $2,000.
- Revenue churn rate = ($2,000 ÷ $25,000) × 100 = 8%.
- Implied lifespan = 100 ÷ 10 = 10 months.
Customer churn rate = 10%; revenue churn rate = 8%; implied average lifespan = 10 months.
Key terms
- Customer Churn Rate
- The percentage of customers who stop doing business with a company during a given period.
- Revenue Churn (MRR Churn)
- The percentage of monthly recurring revenue lost from cancellations or downgrades in a period, excluding any expansion revenue.
- Implied Customer Lifespan
- An estimate of how long an average customer stays, calculated as 1 divided by the periodic churn rate (expressed as a decimal).
- Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)
- The predictable, normalised monthly revenue from all active subscriptions.
- Net Revenue Retention (NRR)
- A related metric that factors in expansion revenue alongside churn; an NRR above 100% means expansion offsets losses.
Frequently asked questions
- What is a good monthly churn rate?
- For SaaS, monthly churn below 2% is considered good; below 1% is excellent. Annual equivalents: 2% monthly ≈ 21% annual churn. Enterprise software tends to have lower churn (0.5–1%/mo) than SMB-focused products (2–5%/mo).
- What is the difference between customer churn and revenue churn?
- Customer churn counts the number of accounts lost. Revenue churn (MRR churn) measures the dollar value lost. Revenue churn can be negative (net negative churn) if expansion revenue from existing customers exceeds cancellations — a sign of a very healthy business.
- How does churn relate to customer lifespan?
- Average customer lifespan ≈ 1 ÷ monthly churn rate. At 10% monthly churn, average lifespan is 10 months. Use this to estimate LTV.