About the Churn Rate Calculator
This churn rate calculator measures how many customers and how much recurring revenue you lose over a period. Enter the customers you started with and how many cancelled, plus starting MRR, MRR lost to cancellations and downgrades, and any expansion MRR, and it returns customer churn, gross revenue churn, net revenue churn and net revenue retention.
It is designed for subscription and SaaS businesses, membership sites and anyone reporting retention to investors. Because churn is often measured quarterly or annually but compared monthly, the calculator converts your figure to an equivalent monthly and annual rate using compounding, and estimates the average customer lifetime implied by that churn.
Count only customers who were active at the start of the period in the denominator — customers acquired during the period and lost before it ends should not inflate or distort the rate. The projection assumes churn stays constant, which is a simplification: real cohorts usually churn faster in their first months.
With the default inputs, the customer churn (for the period) is 5%. Change any value above to recalculate instantly.
How to use the churn rate calculator
- 1Choose whether your numbers cover a month, a quarter or a year.
- 2Enter customers at the start of the period and how many of them cancelled.
- 3Enter starting MRR and the MRR lost to cancellations and downgrades.
- 4Add expansion MRR from upgrades to see net revenue churn and NRR.
- 5Compare the equivalent monthly and annual churn with your targets.
Formula and method
Customer churn is the share of customers active at the start of the period who cancelled by the end. Retention is simply 100% minus churn. To compare a quarterly or annual figure with monthly benchmarks the calculator compounds rather than divides: 12% annual churn is about 1.06% a month, not 1%.
Gross revenue churn counts MRR lost to cancellations and downgrades against starting MRR; net revenue churn subtracts expansion MRR (upgrades, seats, add-ons) from existing customers, and net revenue retention is 100% minus net churn. Average customer lifetime is 1 ÷ monthly churn, which assumes a constant churn rate.
- Customers at start
- Active paying customers on the first day of the period
- MRR lost
- Monthly recurring revenue lost to cancellations and downgrades
- Expansion MRR
- Added MRR from upgrades by customers who existed at the start
Worked examples
Monthly SaaS churn with some expansion
Losing 50 of 1,000 customers in a month is 5% churn. Compounded over a year that is 1 − 0.95¹² ≈ 46% of customers. Revenue churn is $6,000 ÷ $100,000 = 6% gross, or 4% net after $2,000 of expansion, and the average customer lasts 1 ÷ 0.05 = 20 months.
Quarterly data with net negative churn
Losing 30 of 400 customers in a quarter is 7.5% quarterly churn, equivalent to 1 − 0.925^(1/3) ≈ 2.57% a month. Expansion of $7,000 beats $5,000 of losses, so net revenue churn is −2.5% and NRR is 102.5%.
Annual enterprise churn
Twenty of 250 accounts leaving over a year is 8% annual logo churn, or about 0.69% a month. Existing customers expanded by twice what was lost, giving net revenue retention of 106% and an implied average lifetime of roughly 144 months.
Frequently asked questions
How do you calculate churn rate?+
Divide the number of customers lost during a period by the number of customers you had at the start of that period, then multiply by 100. For example, 50 cancellations from 1,000 starting customers is a 5% churn rate.
What is a good churn rate for SaaS?+
Benchmarks vary by segment. Businesses selling to large enterprises often see well under 1% monthly logo churn, while SMB and consumer subscriptions commonly run at 3–7% a month. Compare yourself with companies selling to similar customers at similar price points.
What is the difference between customer churn and revenue churn?+
Customer (logo) churn counts accounts lost; revenue churn measures the recurring revenue lost. They differ when large and small customers churn at different rates, and revenue churn also captures downgrades by customers who stay.
What is net negative churn?+
Net negative churn happens when expansion revenue from existing customers exceeds the revenue lost to cancellations and downgrades. Your existing customer base then grows revenue on its own, which shows up as net revenue retention above 100%.
Can I convert monthly churn to annual churn by multiplying by 12?+
Not accurately. Churn compounds because each month applies to a smaller base, so annual churn = 1 − (1 − monthly churn)¹². Multiplying 5% by 12 gives 60%, but the true annual figure is about 46%.