Churn Rate
Also: Customer ChurnRevenue Churn
The rate at which customers or revenue leave over a period, the leak in your growth engine.
Why it matters
Churn is the single most important number for a subscription business's long-term health, because it sets the ceiling on growth, you cannot fill a bucket faster than it drains. It directly drives lifetime value and the efficiency of every acquisition euro. Small differences in churn compound into very different outcomes.
How it is calculated
Customer churn = customers lost in a period / customers at the start; revenue churn uses lost recurring revenue instead
What good looks like
Acceptable churn varies by segment, low single-digit annual churn is strong for enterprise, higher is normal for SMB and self-serve. Distinguish customer churn from revenue churn, losing small accounts hurts less than losing large ones.
Related terms
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