Example numbers. One month. Replace with yours.
Monthly customer churn
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…How to use the churn rate calculator
This churn rate calculator gives the share of customers lost in a month, quarter or year, as monthly and annual rates.
- Pick the period your numbers cover: Month, Quarter or Year.
- Enter paying customers at the start and customers lost.
- New customers are optional: they add an average-count note.
- Pick the segment to compare with, or “No benchmark”.
- Open “+ Add revenue churn (MRR)” for gross and net revenue churn.
“Show the working” lists every step. “Copy result” gives a one-sentence answer; “Copy link” reopens the same numbers.
How to calculate churn rate
The churn rate formula is customers lost during the period divided by customers at the start, times 100. It’s how you calculate churn rate for SaaS, and a membership churn rate works the same way.
Formula
Churn rate = customers lost ÷ customers at the start × 100
A churn rate calculation: start the month with 1,000 customers, lose 50, and churn is 50 ÷ 1,000 × 100 = 5.00%. Retention rate vs churn rate: retention is 100% minus churn, so 95.00%.
Which customers count
Divide by the start count: the end count includes new sign-ups and makes the rate look lower. Customers who join and leave in the same period count in neither number, nor do trials and free plans.
Win 100 new customers that month too and the churn rate calculator notes the end count, 1,050, and the average-count rate, 4.88%. Report the 5.00% start-count rate: it’s the standard definition.
Monthly churn rate to annual: why it’s not × 12
To convert monthly churn to annual, compound it: each month you lose a share of those left, not of your starting count.
Formula
Annual churn = 1 − (1 − monthly churn)^12
| Monthly churn rate | Annual churn rate, compounded | Multiplied by 12 (wrong) |
|---|---|---|
| 1% | 11.4% | 12% |
| 2% | 21.5% | 24% |
| 3% | 30.6% | 36% |
| 4% | 38.7% | 48% |
| 8% | 63.2% | 96% |
Dividing an annual rate by 12 understates monthly churn the same way. Use the Year tab, or reverse the formula:
Formula
Monthly churn = 1 − (1 − annual churn)^(1/12)
Quarters work the same way: 12% a quarter is 4.17% a month, 40.0% a year. The churn rate calculator’s Quarter tab does both conversions.
What is a good churn rate for SaaS?
For B2B SaaS selling to small and mid-sized companies, 2.5% to 5% monthly customer churn is good and under 1.5% is great, by Lenny Rachitsky’s benchmarks. He set the bands with growth leaders and checked them against ProfitWell data on the top performers among 13,000 SaaS companies, published in February 2022.
| Segment | Good monthly churn | Great | Who it is |
|---|---|---|---|
| B2B SMB and mid-market | 2.5% to 5% | Under 1.5% | Fewer than 1,000 employees; average customer usually under $1K a month |
| B2B enterprise | 1% to 2% | Under 0.5% | More than 1,000 employees; average customer usually over $5K a month |
| B2C subscription | 3% to 5% | Under 2% | Consumers |
They’re targets, not averages: compare with your own past months too. They describe steady-state churn after a customer’s first month, so a start count full of recent sign-ups can churn above the band: that’s an onboarding signal. The churn rate calculator’s pill judges the monthly equivalent of any period you enter. If your average customer pays $1K to $5K a month, you fit neither B2B definition: check both.
ChartMogul’s data shows lower average revenue per account goes with higher churn, so if your customers pay little, compare with your segment’s band, not the enterprise one.
Customer churn rate vs revenue churn
Customer churn counts the accounts you lose. Revenue churn counts the monthly recurring revenue (MRR) lost accounts and downgrades take.
Gross revenue churn is the customer churn formula with MRR in place of customers; net also subtracts upgrades.
Formula
Gross revenue churn = (cancelled MRR + downgrade MRR) ÷ MRR at the start × 100
Formula
Net revenue churn = (cancelled MRR + downgrade MRR − upgrade MRR) ÷ MRR at the start × 100
A revenue churn rate calculation: start the month with $100,000 MRR, lose $5,000 to cancellations and $1,000 to downgrades, gain $3,000 from upgrades. Gross revenue churn is 6.00%; net, 3.00%. The calculator compounds gross to 52.4% a year but shows net, which can turn negative, per period only: for monthly net, use the Month tab.
When the two rates differ, the size of the accounts that left or your downgrades explain it: compare churn from cancelled MRR with customer churn to see which. Lose 20 of 200 customers and customer churn is 10.00%. If those 20 paid $4,000 of $100,000 MRR, revenue churn is 4.00%: they were small accounts. Either rate can be good while the other is poor, so read both.
SaaS Capital’s 2025 survey of more than 1,000 private B2B SaaS companies (2024 retention) puts median gross revenue retention at 91% a year. Compare 100% minus the calculator’s yearly gross revenue churn with about 91%, or 95% if your average contract is above $250,000 a year. The figures leave out companies under $1M ARR; month-to-month contracts come in at an 89% median. At 5% a month, the top of the SMB good band, losing average-sized accounts costs 46.0% of MRR a year, so a monthly-plan product can sit far below them: judge your revenue churn by its own trend. On annual contracts, use 12 months of data, not one compounded renewal month. For net, divide today’s MRR from customers you had a year ago by their MRR then and compare with the 101% net retention median; don’t compound monthly net. Why gross and net differ is explained in our gross retention vs net retention guide.
Why your churn rate doesn’t match other reports
If the churn rate calculator and your billing tool disagree, what’s counted, the base, the period, a small customer count or annual contracts usually explains it.
A different count or base
Including trials or free plans, or counting same-period sign-ups who left as lost, changes the rate. A tool that divides by the end or average count gives a lower rate while you grow.
A different period
Compound both rates to one period before comparing.
Too few customers or annual contracts
With 40 customers, one cancellation moves the rate 2.50 points: 2 lost is 5.00%, 3 lost is 7.50%. Average several months before you judge. Annual contracts can only churn at renewal, so a monthly rate on that base looks low and lumpy. Measure them by quarter or year: in the Year tab, enter all customers from 12 months ago, not only those up for renewal, and the non-renewals since.
What to do with your churn rate
Your next step depends on the churn rate calculator’s pill.
Great. Watch the trend and the revenue churn line. A great customer rate can hide large accounts downgrading.
Between good and great. Find the plan or segment that churns most and start there.
Good. Work on onboarding and ask customers who leave why.
Above the good range. Check the period and segment first. Split cancellations from failed payments: fix payments with retries, card updates and dunning, not product work. Look at the first months by signup cohort.
Every result. Your lost count is how many new customers you need before you grow; new MRR must cover the net MRR lost before revenue grows.
Frequently asked questions
What does a 20% churn rate mean?
A monthly 20% is a crisis and an annual 20% is healthy, so check the period first. At 20% a month, the average customer stays 5 months and 93.1% of a starting group is gone within a year, above the good range for every segment. At 20% a year, it’s 1.84% a month: between good and great for B2B SMB and mid-market, good for enterprise and great for B2C. Set the churn calculator’s period tab to match your number.
Is a 5% churn rate good?
It depends on the period. 5% a month is the top of the good band for B2B SMB and mid-market and for B2C, and above the good range for enterprise. 5% a year is 0.43% a month, great for every segment, enterprise included, since it’s under the 0.5% line. The churn rate calculator’s segment select shows which band applies to you.
What does a 10% churn rate mean?
At 10% a month, the average customer stays 10 months and you lose 71.8% of a starting group within a year, above the good range for every segment. At 10% a year, it’s 0.87% a month: great for B2B SMB and mid-market and for B2C, and between good and great for enterprise.
What is 5% monthly churn annually?
46.0%, not 60%. Compounded: 1 − 0.95^12 = 1 − 0.540 = 0.460.
Is 90% customer retention good?
90% retention is 10% churn, so the 10% answer above applies for both periods. At 90% a year, the average customer stays about 10 years. Don’t compare a customer retention rate with a revenue retention benchmark such as the gross revenue retention median above: one counts accounts, the other counts dollars.
How long does a customer stay at my churn rate?
Divide 1 by your churn rate. At 5% a month the average customer stays 20 months; at 3% a month, 33.3 months. Use the rate for the period you measured, and the lifetime comes out in that period’s units: a yearly rate gives years. It assumes the rate stays the same, so treat it as a rough figure. The churn rate calculator gives this lifetime with every result and switches from months to years above 36 months.
What is net negative churn?
Take the revenue example above with $10,000 of upgrades instead of $3,000. Net revenue churn becomes −4.00% and net revenue retention 104.00%: upgrades more than cover what cancellations and downgrades took. Gross revenue churn stays at 6.00%.