What is Churn Rate?

Churn rate is the inverse of retention — it measures the percentage of customers who leave or stop using your product over a specific period. For subscription businesses, it directly impacts revenue and growth.

Churn can be measured as user churn (users who stop logging in), revenue churn (lost subscription revenue), or logo churn (companies that cancel). Revenue churn is often more important because losing a high-value customer has more impact than losing a free-tier user.

Reducing churn is typically more cost-effective than acquiring new users. Understanding why users churn — through exit surveys, behavioral analysis, and session recordings — is the first step toward improving retention.