Average Churn Rate for SaaS: 2026 Benchmarks by Industry

The average churn rate for SaaS is 3.22% a year in Recurly’s July 2026 median (Recurly, Jul 2026, vendor data). Median gross revenue retention fell from 88% to 84% in CY-25 (Benchmarkit, Jun 2026).

The basis decides the answer: Stripe data counts 38% of customers lost a year, about twelve times Recurly’s median. Below are 40+ SaaS churn statistics from original publishers, checked in November 2026, sourced and free to cite. For NRR, CSM workload and AI use next to churn, see our customer success statistics.

Average Churn Rate for SaaS: Key Statistics

The average churn rate SaaS companies report is 3.22% a year in Recurly’s July 2026 data (Recurly, Jul 2026, vendor data). That median is the typical churn rate for SaaS subscribers in its network. Stripe data published by Churnkey counts 38% of SaaS customers lost a year (Churnkey (Stripe data), Nov 2025, vendor data), a different measure.

Category	Statistic	Source
Average annual churn, SaaS (Recurly median)	SaaS median churn 3.22% (voluntary 2.16%, involuntary 1.06%), Recurly network, July 2026	Recurly, Jul 2026, vendor data
Previous Recurly edition, stated monthly	Recurly’s January 2026 edition called its 3.27% overall churn rate monthly (2023 data)	Recurly, Jan 2026, vendor data
Share of customers lost a year (Stripe data)	SaaS businesses lose 38% of customers a year in the table of Stripe data published by Churnkey (39% in the page text)	Churnkey (Stripe data), Nov 2025, vendor data
B2B vs B2C net revenue retention	Median NRR is 82% for B2B SaaS and 49% for B2C SaaS, ChartMogul, 2025	ChartMogul, Dec 2025, vendor data
Top-quartile churn	Top-quartile SaaS churn is 1.78% or below, Recurly network, July 2026	Recurly, Jul 2026, vendor data
Gross revenue retention, median	Median gross revenue retention fell from 88% to 84% in CY-25, Benchmarkit	Benchmarkit, Jun 2026
Net revenue retention, median	Median NRR is 102% in CY-25, top quartile 110%, Benchmarkit	Benchmarkit, Jun 2026
Involuntary share of churn	22% of SaaS churn is involuntary, Stripe data, 2024	Churnkey (Stripe data), Nov 2025, vendor data
Industry spread (highest of six verticals)	Education median churn is 4.99% (voluntary 3.30%, involuntary 1.69%), Recurly, July 2026	Recurly, Jul 2026, vendor data
Churn by revenue per customer	Recurly all-industry, July 2026: median churn 4.29% at $10-$25 ARPC, 2.87% at $100-$250	Recurly, Jul 2026, vendor data
Enterprise gross retention	GRR is 95% above $250k ACV and about 91% below it, SaaS Capital, 2024	SaaS Capital, Sep 2025
Billing term (annual vs multi-year)	Multi-year contracts retain 94% of revenue against 90% on annual contracts, SaaS Capital, 2024	SaaS Capital, Sep 2025
AI-native products	AI-native companies had median GRR of 40% and NRR of 48%, ChartMogul, 2025	ChartMogul, Dec 2025, small sample (n = about 200 companies)
Activation	Users who never used the core feature churn at 3 to 6 times the rate, Customerscore	Customerscore.io, Jun 2026, vendor data

Every figure comes from its original publisher or, where the owner’s report is gated, the page that publishes its data. Each was checked in November 2026. Data is from 2023 or later. Vendor data, predictions, small samples and our calculations are labelled, so each row can be quoted on its own.

What Is a Good Churn Rate for SaaS?

A good churn rate for SaaS is at or below the top quartile of its peers. The table gives Recurly’s bands for strong, typical and worth investigating.

Three formulas separate the measures:

• Logo churn is customers lost in a period divided by customers at the start.
• Gross revenue churn is revenue lost to cancellations and downgrades divided by starting revenue.
• Net revenue churn also subtracts expansion revenue, so it turns negative when upsells outweigh losses.

Band	Statistic	Source
Strong	Below 2% annual churn	Recurly, Jul 2026, vendor data
Typical for well-run subscription businesses	2% to 4% annual churn	Recurly, Jul 2026, vendor data
Worth investigating	Above 5% annual churn	Recurly, Jul 2026, vendor data
Good (top quartile)	1.78% or below, Recurly network, July 2026	Recurly, Jul 2026, vendor data

To convert a monthly churn rate to annual, compound it: 1 – (1 – monthly rate)^12. The table shows the annual churn rate SaaS teams get from each common monthly rate. To convert your own rate both ways, use our monthly churn rate calculator.

Monthly churn	Annual churn if it holds for 12 months (our calculation)
0.5%	5.8%
1%	11.4%
2%	21.5%
3%	30.6%
4%	38.7%
5%	46.0%
6%	52.4%
8%	63.2%

A churn rate that sounds small compounds fast: 5% a month is 46% a year

Annual churn if the monthly rate holds for 12 months

Item	Annual churn if the monthly rate holds for 12 months
0.5%	5.8%
1%	11.4%
2%	21.5%
3%	30.6%
5%	46.0%
8%	63.2%

0% 20% 40% 60% 80%

5.8%

11.4%

21.5%

30.6%

46.0%

63.2%

0.5%1%2%3%5%8%

Takeaway: A monthly figure set against an annual benchmark misleads, because small monthly rates compound fast, so convert before you compare.

Churn Rate Statistics: The Numbers That Matter in 2026

These SaaS churn rate benchmarks answer six questions, in the order readers ask them: the average, retention, direction, involuntary churn, billing terms and growth.

What Is the Average SaaS Churn Rate, and Why Do Sources Disagree?

SaaS sources disagree on the average because each counts something different. Recurly’s SaaS median is 3.22%, labelled annual (Recurly, Jul 2026, vendor data). Stripe data published by Churnkey counts 38% of customers lost a year (Churnkey (Stripe data), Nov 2025, vendor data), not subscriber churn.

Estimate	Statistic	Source
Recurly, same panel, prose figure	Recurly prose gives 3.04% for software businesses; its table and FAQ give 3.22%	Recurly, Jul 2026, vendor data
Recurly, all industries	Overall churn across all Recurly industries is 3.60% (voluntary 2.34%, involuntary 1.25%)	Recurly, Jul 2026, vendor data
Recurly, previous edition (stated monthly)	Recurly’s January 2026 edition called its 3.27% overall churn rate monthly (2023 data)	Recurly, Jan 2026, vendor data
Stripe data, share of customers lost a year	SaaS businesses lose 38% of customers a year in the table of Stripe data published by Churnkey (39% in the page text)	Churnkey (Stripe data), Nov 2025, vendor data

In our calculation, Recurly’s 3.22% compounds to 32.5% a year if read as monthly, the basis its January 2026 edition stated. The Stripe-based 38% is about twelve times Recurly’s 3.22%, an observation and not a finding that Recurly’s July rate is monthly.

Takeaway: State the basis of each estimate, monthly or annual, subscriber or customer, and never average them.

What Is the Average Retention Rate for SaaS?

The average retention rate for SaaS companies depends on the panel. Median net revenue retention runs from 82% in ChartMogul’s data to 102% in Benchmarkit’s, and private surveys put gross retention near 90%.

Measure	Statistic	Source
Gross retention, private SaaS survey	Private SaaS firms keep gross retention near 90% and net retention above 100%, KeyBanc and Sapphire, 2025	KeyBanc and Sapphire Ventures, 2025
Net retention, Benchmarkit CY-25	Median NRR is 102% in CY-25, top quartile 110%, Benchmarkit	Benchmarkit, Jun 2026
Net retention, Benchmarkit CY-24	Median net revenue retention was 101% in CY-24, hybrid pricing 110%, Benchmarkit	Benchmarkit, May 2025
Net retention, ChartMogul panel	Median NRR is 82% for B2B SaaS and 49% for B2C SaaS, ChartMogul, 2025	ChartMogul, Dec 2025, vendor data

Takeaway: Medians differ by survey frame, not by error, so name the panel before you compare your own retention with any of them.

Is SaaS Churn Getting Better or Worse?

SaaS retention got worse in Benchmarkit’s panel between CY-24 and CY-25: median gross revenue retention fell 4 points, the largest single-year drop (Benchmarkit, Jun 2026).

Measure	Statistic	Source
Gross retention, CY-25	Median gross revenue retention fell from 88% to 84% in CY-25, Benchmarkit	Benchmarkit, Jun 2026
Gross retention, CY-24	Median gross revenue retention was 88% in CY-24, down from 90% three years earlier, Benchmarkit	Benchmarkit, May 2025
AI-native products	AI-native companies had median GRR of 40% and NRR of 48%, ChartMogul, 2025	ChartMogul, Dec 2025, small sample (n = about 200 companies)
Paddle B2B churn index	Paddle’s B2B churn index: -1.563 in Q2 2025, flat after Q1’s rise; a lower index means less churn (an index, not a churn rate)	Paddle, Jul 2025, vendor data

Takeaway: Retention slipped in the Benchmarkit panel while Paddle’s churn index eased, so no source gives one direction. AI-native products are the weak spot, and that sample is small.

How Much SaaS Churn Is Involuntary?

Involuntary churn is churn caused by failed payments, not a decision to leave. It is the smaller part in both panels. In our calculation from Recurly’s figures (Recurly, Jul 2026, vendor data), 67% is voluntary and 33% involuntary, a larger involuntary share than the Stripe figure.

Measure	Statistic	Source
Share of SaaS churn that is involuntary	22% of SaaS churn is involuntary, Stripe data, 2024	Churnkey (Stripe data), Nov 2025, vendor data
Involuntary churn by revenue per customer	Involuntary churn is 0.18% at $250+ ARPC against 1.30% at $10 to $25, Recurly, 2026	Recurly, Jul 2026, vendor data
Why payments fail	Insufficient funds causes 40.56% of failed subscription payments, Churnkey, 2025	Churnkey, Nov 2025, vendor data
Recovery of failed payments	Stripe’s recovery tools saved 57% of failed payments in 2023, $5.32 billion in revenue	Stripe, Nov 2024, vendor data
Timing and lift of recovery	90% of recovered failed payments come within 10 days; retries lifted recovery 53% to 71%, Recurly	Recurly, Apr 2026, vendor data

Takeaway: Each vendor measures recovery differently, so compare your own recovery rate with one definition, not across sources.

Do Annual Plans and Usage-Based Pricing Lower Churn?

Longer contracts go with lower churn in the data that measured it. Multi-year terms beat annual terms by 4 points of gross revenue retention in SaaS Capital’s 2024 data (SaaS Capital, Sep 2025).

Factor	Statistic	Source
Annual against monthly plans	Annual-plan median NRR is 10 to 20 points above monthly, growthunhinged.com data via ChartMogul	ChartMogul, Dec 2025, vendor data
Contract length	Multi-year contracts retain 94% of revenue against 90% on annual contracts, SaaS Capital, 2024	SaaS Capital, Sep 2025
Monthly against annual in one dataset	Monthly plans churned 4.7 times faster than annual plans in Customerscore’s data	Customerscore.io, Jun 2026, vendor data
Usage-based pricing	33% of usage-priced B2B SaaS companies reach NRR of 120% or more, LogiSense, 2024	LogiSense, 2025, vendor data
Seat-based vs usage-based, summary figure	Usage-based pricing shows 108% NRR against 98% for seat-based, Benchmarkit, CY-25	Benchmarkit, Jun 2026
Seat-based, the report’s other figure	Benchmarkit’s Macro Backdrop section puts seat-based median NRR at 95%, not 98%	Benchmarkit, Jun 2026

Takeaway: Differences by billing term and pricing model are correlations in survey and vendor data, not causes. SaaS Capital compares only annual with multi-year contracts, so its figures say nothing about monthly plans.

Does Lower Churn Lead to Faster Growth?

Lower churn goes with faster growth. In SaaS Capital’s 2024 survey, each higher net retention band has a higher median growth rate (SaaS Capital, Sep 2025).

Link to growth	Statistic	Source
Growth by net retention band	Median growth is 50% above 130% NRR and 15% below 90% NRR, SaaS Capital, 2024	SaaS Capital, Sep 2025
Low retention and shrinking	Low-retention companies are three times as likely to be shrinking as growing fast, ChartMogul, 2025	ChartMogul, Dec 2025, vendor data
Contract value of high-retention companies	Companies with 120%+ NRR have a median ACV of $61,802 against $26,269 below it, in SaaS Capital’s survey of private B2B SaaS companies	SaaS Capital, Aug 2026

In our calculation, a 4-point drop in gross revenue retention costs a hypothetical $5M ARR company $200,000 a year.

Takeaway: The link between retention and growth is a correlation in two panels, not a cause. A point of retention is still real money, as the example shows.

Average Churn Rate by Industry: SaaS vs Other Subscription Sectors

Recurly is the one owner panel that publishes industry medians, and SaaS has the lowest of its six verticals.

Industry	Median churn	Voluntary	Involuntary	Source
SaaS	3.22%	2.16%	1.06%	Recurly, Jul 2026, vendor data
Business and professional services	3.44%	2.27%	1.18%	Recurly, Jul 2026, vendor data
Travel & hospitality & entertainment	3.91%	2.63%	1.28%	Recurly, Jul 2026, vendor data
Digital media and entertainment	4.14%	2.55%	1.59%	Recurly, Jul 2026, vendor data
Ecommerce	4.25%	2.87%	1.38%	Recurly, Jul 2026, vendor data
Education	4.99%	3.30%	1.69%	Recurly, Jul 2026, vendor data

SaaS has the lowest median churn of six Recurly subscription industries

Median annual churn, Recurly network, July 2026

SaaS	3.22%
Business and professional services	3.44%
Travel & hospitality & entertainment	3.91%
Digital media and entertainment	4.14%
Ecommerce	4.25%
Education	4.99%

Education is about 1.55 times SaaS in Recurly’s table (our calculation), and Recurly does not state how it assigns a vertical.

Takeaway: Compare yourself with your own vertical, and read a vertical median as a subscriber-level rate on Recurly’s network, not as a SaaS-wide law.

B2B SaaS Churn Rate by Company Size and Contract Value

Average churn rate by company size is best read by contract value: retention is flat until $250k ACV and steps up above it. In SaaS Capital’s chart, GRR is 90% to 91% below $250k and 95% above. NRR runs from 98% under $12k to 106% above $250k (SaaS Capital, Sep 2025).

1. Consumer and prosumer SaaS: median churn of 4.29% at $10 to $25 a month, Recurly’s all-industry data.
2. SMB SaaS under $25k ACV: NRR of 98% and GRR of 90% under $12k.
3. Mid-market SaaS at $25k to $100k ACV: NRR of 102% at $25k to $50k.
4. Upper mid-market SaaS at $100k to $250k ACV: NRR of 102% and GRR of 91%.
5. Enterprise SaaS above $250k ACV: GRR of 95% and NRR of 106%.

ACV band	Median NRR	Median GRR	Source
Under $12k	98%	90%	SaaS Capital, Sep 2025
$12k to $25k	103%	91%	SaaS Capital, Sep 2025
$25k to $50k	102%	91%	SaaS Capital, Sep 2025
$50k to $100k	104%	90%	SaaS Capital, Sep 2025
$100k to $250k	102%	91%	SaaS Capital, Sep 2025
Over $250k	106%	95%	SaaS Capital, Sep 2025

Source: SaaS Capital, Sep 2025

Net revenue retention rises from 98% under $12k to 106% above $250k

Median NRR by ACV band, private B2B SaaS, SaaS Capital, 2024 data

Item	Median NRR by ACV band, private B2B SaaS, SaaS Capital, 2024 data
Under $12k	98%
$12k to $25k	103%
$25k to $50k	102%
$50k to $100k	104%
$100k to $250k	102%
Over $250k	106%

0% 50% 100%

98%

103%

102%

104%

102%

106%

Under $12k$12k to $25k$25k to $50k$50k to $100k$100k to $250kOver $250k

#1 Consumer and Prosumer SaaS

In Recurly’s all-industry subscription data, churn is highest at the lowest price tier, 4.29% at $10 to $25 a month (Recurly, Jul 2026, vendor data). The tiers are monthly price per customer, not contract value, and the table is not SaaS-only.

Monthly price per customer	Statistic	Source
Recurly tiers, $10 to $250 a month	Recurly all-industry, July 2026: median churn 4.29% at $10-$25 ARPC, 2.87% at $100-$250	Recurly, Jul 2026, vendor data
Recurly over $250 a month, table figure	Median churn at $250+ ARPC is 3.07% in Recurly’s table, July 2026	Recurly, Jul 2026, vendor data
Recurly over $250 a month, page-text figure	Recurly’s text puts churn at $250+ ARPC at 3.54%, July 2026	Recurly, Jul 2026, vendor data
ChartMogul AI-native products by monthly price	AI products under $50 a month keep 23% of revenue (GRR); over $250 a month, 70%, ChartMogul	ChartMogul, Dec 2025, small sample (n = about 200 companies, about 50 per bucket)

Takeaway: The minimum is at $100 to $250 a month, not at the top tier, so a higher price alone does not lower churn.

#2 SMB SaaS (Under $25k ACV)

Median NRR under $12k ACV is 8 points below the over-$250k band in SaaS Capital’s chart, our calculation from SaaS Capital, Sep 2025. The $12k to $25k band already reaches 103%.

Takeaway: Only the under-$12k band falls below 100% net retention in this data, so SMB gains there come from keeping customers, not from expansion.

#3 Mid-Market SaaS ($25k to $100k ACV)

Mid-market SaaS holds net retention above 100%. Median NRR is 102% at $25k-$50k ACV, top quartile 111%, bottom quartile 97%, SaaS Capital, 2024 (SaaS Capital, Sep 2025).

Takeaway: The mid-market holds net retention just above 100% with a wide quartile spread. The spread, not the median, is where the gain is.

#4 Upper Mid-Market SaaS ($100k to $250k ACV)

SaaS Capital’s chart shows median NRR of 102% and GRR of 91% at $100k to $250k ACV (SaaS Capital, Sep 2025). Its quartiles run from 94% to 109%.

Takeaway: Retention is flat from $12k to $250k on gross terms, so the step up comes only above $250k.

#5 Enterprise SaaS Churn Rate ($250k+ ACV)

Enterprise SaaS churn is lowest of any band, about 5% of revenue a year above $250k ACV. That is our calculation as one minus SaaS Capital’s 95% GRR (SaaS Capital, Sep 2025). NRR at that size is 106%.

Takeaway: SaaS Capital points to longer sales cycles, careful scoping and implementation, and dedicated support and account management as the reasons for the gap.

What to Do If Your Churn Looks Like This

Seven signals you can check in your own data, each with the first move and the stat behind it.

Signal	What to do first	The stat behind it
You compare a monthly churn figure with an annual benchmark, or the reverse	Convert one to the other with 1 – (1 – monthly)^12 before judging the gap	Read as monthly, Recurly’s 3.22% compounds to 32.5% a year (our calculation from Recurly, Jul 2026, vendor data figures)
Your billing log shows failed payments among the reasons customers leave	Break failed payments down by decline code, and retry soft declines such as insufficient funds before building expired-card reminders	Expired cards account for 1.14% of failed-payment decline codes, Churnkey, 2025 (Churnkey, Nov 2025, vendor data)
Your gross revenue retention is below 84%, the CY-25 Benchmarkit median	Find the segment, plan or cohort losing the most revenue before changing pricing or product	Median GRR of 84% implies 16% gross revenue churn (our calculation from Benchmarkit, Jun 2026 figures)
Net revenue retention is under 100% while gross retention is near the median	Check expansion: list which accounts could buy more and who owns that motion	Expansion is 40% of new ARR at the median, unchanged from CY-24, Benchmarkit (Benchmarkit, Jun 2026)
Most of your customers pay monthly	Offer annual or multi-year terms to one cohort and compare 12-month retention against the monthly cohort	On $2M ARR, multi-year terms keep $80,000 more than annual terms (our calculation from SaaS Capital, Sep 2025 figures)
New customers do not reach your core feature in their first weeks	Define the core action, measure how many new accounts reach it, and fix onboarding before touching price	Users who never used the core feature churn at 3 to 6 times the rate, Customerscore (Customerscore.io, Jun 2026, vendor data)
Logo churn and revenue churn point in different directions	Split churn by contract value or price tier before reading either number	Involuntary churn is 7.2 times higher at $10-$25 ARPC than at $250+ (our calculation from Recurly, Jul 2026, vendor data figures)

Worked example: Take 180 SMB customers at $8,000 and 20 enterprise customers at $120,000. Logo churn of 9.5% can mean revenue churn of only 6.9%.

Our calculation from SaaS Capital GRR bands, illustrative base: the SMB loss rate is 10% and the enterprise loss rate is 5%.

SaaS Churn Stats You’ll See Quoted That Don’t Hold Up

Eight numbers repeat across roundups, and the trail for each ends at no study, a superseded edition or old data.

The statistic	Where it circulates	What the trail shows
“Average SaaS churn is about 5% a year (also “typical SaaS churn about 5%”)”	gong.io, paddle.com (2022), many roundups, Reddit, AI Overview	Gong links a 2022 Forbes Business Council piece whose author states the average churn rate to be about 5% with no study or period; Paddle’s own 2022 post repeats 5% with no source; no dataset behind it
“Average B2B SaaS churn 3.5%, voluntary 2.6%, involuntary 0.8% (a “2025 Recurly Churn Report”); also voluntary 2.6% to 3.3% and involuntary 0.8% to 1.1% monthly”	vitally.io, venasolutions.com, stripo research, focus-digital.co (3.5% monthly)	Vitally links Recurly and Vena names Recurly and Paddle Q1 and Q2 2025; neither Recurly’s July 2026 edition (3.60%, 2.34%, 1.25%) nor its January 2026 edition (3.27%, 2.41%, 0.86%) shows 3.5%, 2.6% or 0.8%; Paddle’s reports hold indices, not rates
“Average annual SaaS churn 3.8%, B2B 4.9%; B2B churn 0.3% to 1% monthly or 3.5% to 5% annually (Recurly and Paddle Q1 and Q2 2025)”	venasolutions.com	Vena names no source for 3.8% and 4.9%; none of 0.3%, 3.8% or 4.9% appears on Recurly’s July 2026 or January 2026 editions or on Paddle’s Q1 and Q2 2025 reports
“20 to 40% of churn is involuntary (also “nearly one-third”, 26% in a table)”	gong.io, churnkey.co, focus-digital.co, paddle.com, chargebee.com, recurly.com blog (Apr 2026)	Gong links a Paddle resource that states the range with no study or year (page dated 2022); Paddle’s blog backs it with one anonymous seller (19% to 38%, about 30%); the only dataset that splits churn, Stripe data via Churnkey, gives 22% for SaaS and 16% for B2B; Recurly’s July 2026 medians give about 33%; a rule of thumb, not a measured result
“SMB churn 31% to 58% a year (3% to 7% monthly), mid-market 11% to 22%, enterprise 6% to 10% or 1% or less”	reddit.com r/SaaS, venasolutions.com, churnkey.co, data-mania.com, cmswire.com	Recurly’s current page has no SMB or enterprise split and Paddle’s Q1 and Q2 2025 reports have none; CMSWire (2018) credits Tomasz Tunguz for the 6% to 10%, 31% to 58% and 11% to 22%; Point Nine’s 2015 post carries the 31% to 58% and 3% to 7% monthly row
“Good B2B SaaS churn is below 1% a month (Vena); good monthly subscription churn is 0.40% or lower (Gong)”	venasolutions.com, gong.io, churnkey.co	Neither page names a source, study or year (no data year)
“B2B SaaS churn averages 3% to 5% a month, consumer SaaS 6% to 8%, enterprise single digits a year; small-business SaaS 3% to 5% monthly is good”	churnkey.co, vitally.io (6.5% to 8% B2C), AI Overview	Churnkey names no study (it cites only its own experience and its clients); Vitally’s 6.5% to 8% names no source; Vena gives the same 6% to 8% as an annual figure, the opposite basis; Churnkey’s own Stripe-based benchmark gives 3.82% monthly for B2B (no data year)
“Acquiring a new customer costs 5 times more than retaining one”	vitally.io and most churn roundups	Forbes Council page could not be opened; the oldest reachable restatement is HBR 2014 (“anywhere from five to 25 times”, “depending on which study you believe”) with no study named; no original dataset found (no data year)

What the 2026 Churn Numbers Say

The 2026 churn data comes down to three findings. The basis decides the average: Stripe data’s 38% of customers lost a year sits beside Recurly’s 3.22% subscriber median.

Contract value drives churn, and GRR reaches 95% above $250k ACV. Involuntary churn and billing term are the cheapest levers: 22% of churn is involuntary, and multi-year contracts keep 94% of revenue.

Which basis does your own churn number use: monthly or annual, logo or revenue?