Churn rate
Also known as: Attrition rate, Cancellation rate
The percentage of subscribers who cancel in a given period. Usually reported as a monthly percentage.
Churn rate measures subscription loss. It is the single most referenced retention metric and the most frequently calculated wrong. The right denominator is the customers who could have cancelled in the period — not the end-of-period count. Dividing by the ending count artificially lowers the number, which hides problems from founders.
Formula
monthly_churn = cancellations_in_month / subscribers_at_start_of_month
Worked example
A store starts March with 1,200 subscribers and loses 60 to cancellation during the month. Monthly churn = 60 / 1,200 = 5%. If the store gained 150 new subscribers that same month, the churn rate is still 5% — you never put new subscribers in the denominator.
Related terms
- Save rate- The percentage of cancellation attempts that a save flow keeps as active subscribers.
- Voluntary churn- Subscribers who intentionally cancel. This is what a save flow targets.
- Involuntary churn- Subscribers who lose access because of payment failures — expired cards, insufficient funds, chargebacks — not a deliberate cancel.
- Net revenue retention- Revenue from the cohort at the end of the period divided by revenue from the same cohort at the start. Includes expansion + churn.
Related reading
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