Churn Rate Calculator
A subscription business can add customers every month and still shrink, because growth is a bucket with a hole in it: churn is the size of the hole. This calculator measures it two ways, as customer churn (the share of customers lost in a period) and as revenue churn (the share of monthly recurring revenue lost), with expansion revenue counted separately so you can see whether existing customers are growing faster than they are leaving.
One boundary is worth stating up front. This page is about subscription churn over a period: customers and recurring revenue at the start, measured against what was lost. It is not a booking cancellation tool. If you run on reservations, orders, or appointments, the cancellation rate calculator covers that metric, where the denominator is bookings in a period rather than subscribers at its start.
Annualized churn compounds the period rate. A 5% monthly churn is a 45.96% annual churn, not 60%, and not the 5 x 12 = 60 figure a linear shortcut would give.
Quick Answer
Key takeaways
- Customer churn = customers lost / customers at the start of the period x 100. New customers never enter the denominator.
- Revenue churn answers a different question: gross revenue churn counts cancellations plus downgrades against starting MRR, and net revenue churn subtracts expansion, so it can go negative.
- Annualize by compounding, never by multiplying by 12. Five percent monthly is 45.96% a year, and the gap between the two methods widens as churn rises.
- Benchmarks only mean anything inside a segment: ChartMogul data shows median monthly customer churn falling as average revenue per account rises, from roughly 6 to 7% at very low prices to 1 to 2% at $500 or more.
- Quick Answer
- How to use the churn rate calculator
- The churn formulas: customers, gross revenue, and net revenue
- Worked examples: the pre-filled month, both modes
- Reading the rate: bands, benchmarks, and the leaky bucket
- What competing calculators miss
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Add This Calculator to Your Website
- References
How to use the churn rate calculator
Start in customer churn mode. Enter customers at the start of the period, customers lost during it, and new customers added, then set the period length in months so the annualized figure compounds correctly. Read the result in order: the churn rate, its retention mirror, the retained count with net growth and average customer lifetime, and the annualized rate with the linear figure it replaces shown for contrast.
Then switch to revenue mode if your customers pay different amounts, which most do. Enter starting MRR, the MRR lost to cancellations and downgrades combined (the field is labelled churned and contraction MRR, because both shrink the base the same way), and expansion MRR from existing customers upgrading. The two modes together tell you whether you are losing many small accounts or a few large ones, which are different problems with different fixes. Teams tracking the earlier stage of the same funnel, offers made against offers accepted, will recognise the mirror logic in the acceptance rate calculator.
The churn formulas: customers, gross revenue, and net revenue
Two definitions do quiet damage when teams get them wrong. The denominator is the starting base, not the average or ending base: mixing those is how two honest teams report different churn for the same month. And contraction counts. A customer who downgrades from $500 to $100 has not churned as a logo, but $400 of MRR left, and revenue churn that ignores downgrades will flatter the business while it shrinks. ChartMogul’s churn guidance makes the same customer versus revenue distinction, and notes that revenue concentration is exactly why the two rates diverge.
Worked examples: the pre-filled month, both modes
| Figure | Math | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Customer churn rate | 25 / 500 x 100 | 5.00% |
| Customer retention rate | 100 – 5.00 | 95.00% |
| Retained customers | 500 – 25 | 475 |
| Net customer growth | (40 – 25) / 500 x 100 | +3.00% |
| Average customer lifetime | 100 / 5.00 | 20.0 periods |
| Annualized churn (1-month period) | 1 – (1 – 0.05) to the 12th power | 45.96% |
| Gross revenue churn | 3,000 / 50,000 x 100 | 6.00% |
| Gross revenue retention | 100 – 6.00 | 94.00% |
| Net revenue churn | (3,000 – 4,000) / 50,000 x 100 | -2.00% |
The pair of revenue figures is the most instructive result on the page. Gross churn of 6.00% says the base is leaking; net churn of negative 2.00% says expansion from the customers who stayed more than refilled it. A business in that position should protect the expansion motion first, because its growth engine is existing customers, and losing them hurts twice. The opposite shape, low customer churn with high revenue churn, means your largest accounts are the ones leaving, and no volume of small signups will hide that for long.
Reading the rate: bands, benchmarks, and the leaky bucket
The verdict wired into the customer result uses simple bands: under 5% per period reads as low for most subscription businesses, 5% to under 10% as moderate and worth segmenting by cohort, and 10% or above as high. Treat those bands as a prompt, not a grade. Published benchmark data consistently shows churn falling as price and account size rise: self-serve products at a few dollars a month churn several times faster than enterprise contracts, and the median private B2B SaaS company keeps about 91% of its existing-customer revenue each year before expansion.
What the headline rate cannot show is where the leak is. Segment before acting: new customers in their first period, one plan, one acquisition channel, and failed payments (involuntary churn) each have a different fix. The funnel parallel is the abandon rate calculator: abandonment measures people who started and never finished, churn measures people who finished, stayed, and then left, and confusing the two sends the fix to the wrong team.
What competing calculators miss
Miss 1: linear annualizing. Several rival tools multiply a monthly rate by 12. That overstates annual churn and the error compounds: at 5% monthly it claims 60% against the correct 45.96%. This calculator compounds, and prints the linear figure next to the correct one so the difference is visible.
Miss 2: customer churn only. A count of lost logos hides revenue concentration. Losing 3 enterprise accounts can be 10% customer churn and 50% revenue churn in the same month. The revenue mode here, with contraction and expansion separated, is the version finance teams actually report.
Miss 3: new customers in the denominator. Tools that divide by the ending or average base quietly flatter the rate in growing businesses. The denominator here is fixed at the starting base, and the new-customers field is labelled as net growth only, so the definition cannot drift.
Frequently Asked Questions
Divide customers lost during a period by customers at the start of that period and multiply by 100. Losing 25 of 500 starting customers is 25 / 500 x 100 = 5.00% churn. Customers gained during the period are never added to the denominator.
Customer churn counts accounts: how many logos left. Revenue churn counts money: how much recurring revenue left through cancellations and downgrades. They diverge when accounts pay different amounts, since losing one large account can be minor customer churn and major revenue churn in the same period.
Net revenue churn subtracts expansion revenue (upgrades and added seats from existing customers) from churned and contracted revenue, divided by starting MRR. When expansion exceeds losses, net churn goes negative: with $3,000 lost and $4,000 expanded on a $50,000 base, net revenue churn is -2.00%, meaning the existing base grew on its own.
By compounding, not by multiplying by 12. Annual churn = 1 – (1 – monthly churn) to the power of 12. A 5.00% monthly churn compounds to 45.96% over a year, because each month the churn applies to the smaller base that remains.
It depends on price and segment. Benchmark data shows median monthly customer churn around 6 to 7% for very low priced products and 1 to 2% for products charging $500 or more per account, and a common enterprise target is under 1% monthly. This calculator’s bands read under 5% per period as low, 5% to under 10% as moderate, and 10% or more as high, but compare against your own segment first.
No. Churn here is subscription churn: customers or recurring revenue lost from a starting base over a period. Bookings, orders, and appointments cancelled out of a period total are a different metric, covered by the cancellation rate calculator on this site.
It is the reciprocal of the churn rate: at 5.00% churn per period, the average customer stays about 1 / 0.05 = 20 periods. It is a steady-state estimate that assumes the churn rate stays constant, useful for lifetime value work and rough planning.
For revenue churn, yes: a downgrade is contraction, recurring revenue lost without losing the logo, and this calculator’s lost-MRR field combines churned and contraction MRR for that reason. For customer churn, a downgraded customer has not churned until they cancel entirely.
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References
- ChartMogul, “The SaaS Churn Guide” and churn basics: customer versus revenue churn definitions, why the two diverge under revenue concentration, and negative churn. ChartMogul: SaaS Churn Guide. Accessed October 2026.
- ChartMogul Help Center, “Customer Churn Rate report”: churn by average revenue per account, about 6 to 7% monthly under $10 ARPA and 1 to 2% at $500 or more. ChartMogul: Customer Churn Rate Report. Accessed October 2026.
- SaaS Capital benchmarks as reported in B2B SaaS churn analyses: median private B2B SaaS gross revenue retention of about 91%, or roughly 9% annual revenue churn before expansion. Churn Buster: B2B SaaS Churn Rate Benchmarks. Accessed October 2026.