Churn rate calculator

Updated 2026-08-04

Customers at start of month

Customers lost during month

Monthly churn rate

0.00%

—

Average customer lifetime

0 months

The formula

monthly churn  = customers lost ÷ customers at start
annualised     = 1 − (1 − monthly churn)^12
avg lifetime   ≈ 1 ÷ monthly churn

Note that annualised churn is not monthly × 12. Compounding means 5% monthly churn is about 46% annually, not 60%.

Customer churn vs revenue churn

Two different numbers, and confusing them is common:

Customer churn counts people. Treats a $9 customer and a $900 customer equally.

Revenue churn counts money, and is usually the more important figure. If you lose ten small customers and gain one large one, customer churn looks terrible while revenue churn may be negative — which is a good thing.

Net revenue churn subtracts expansion revenue from upgrades. Below zero means you'd grow even acquiring nobody, which is the strongest position a subscription business can be in.

Rough benchmarks

Type	Typical monthly churn
Self-serve SaaS	3–5%
Consumer subscription	5–10%
Annual contracts	under 1%
Enterprise	under 1%

Take these loosely — churn varies enormously by price point and market.

Before you panic about a churn spike

Check whether it was voluntary or involuntary. A wave of expired cards looks identical to a wave of cancellations on a dashboard, and the two demand completely different responses.

See failed payments and involuntary churn — a few percent of revenue failing for card reasons is normal, and much of it is recoverable.

What FRGMNT does here

Nothing — worth being clear. FRGMNT reports True MRR, today's cash and a live ledger. It does not compute churn, cohorts or retention.

If churn analysis is what you need, ChartMogul is free under $10k MRR and considerably better at it.

Frequently asked

How do you calculate monthly churn rate?

Divide customers lost during the month by the number you had at the start, then multiply by 100. Customers acquired during the month are conventionally excluded from the denominator.

What is a good churn rate?

For self-serve SaaS, monthly customer churn of 3 to 5 percent is common and under 3 percent is good. Consumer subscriptions typically churn faster, and annual plans much slower.

What is average customer lifetime?

Approximately one divided by your monthly churn rate. At 5 percent monthly churn the average customer stays about 20 months.