Definition
The percentage of subscribers who cancel or do not renew their subscription over a given time period. Churn can be voluntary or involuntary and is a core metric for measuring retention health and forecasting revenue growth.
Monthly Churn Rate = (Subscribers Lost During Month / Subscribers at Start of Month) x 100. For example: 600 / 10,000 = 6% monthly churn. Annual Churn Rate = 1 - (1 - Monthly Churn Rate)^12. At 6% monthly churn: 1 - (0.94)^12 = 52.4% annual churn.
Monthly churn rates vary by category: best-in-class apps achieve 2-4% monthly churn, average apps see 5-8%, and struggling apps exceed 10%. Annual plan churn is typically lower (20-40% annually). The benchmark that matters most is whether your churn rate is improving over time.
Voluntary churn occurs when a user actively cancels their subscription. Involuntary churn happens when payments fail due to expired cards, insufficient funds, or technical issues. Involuntary churn typically accounts for 20-40% of total churn and is often easier to fix through billing retry logic and dunning campaigns.
Address both types: for voluntary churn, improve onboarding, increase engagement, add cancellation deflection flows, and ensure users experience your core value quickly. For involuntary churn, implement billing retry logic, send payment failure notifications, and offer easy ways to update payment methods. Most apps see the biggest ROI from fixing involuntary churn first.
The act of ending a subscription, either by the user or automatically due to billing failure. Understanding cancellation timing and reasons is key for designing retention strategies, deflection flows, and win-back campaigns.
A short feedback form presented during the cancellation process to understand why a user is choosing to leave. These insights inform product improvements, pricing strategy, and targeted win-back efforts.
The ratio of users who click on a specific call-to-action (e.g., email link, push notification, paywall button) versus those who viewed it. CTR is a key engagement metric for evaluating creative performance and funnel effectiveness. Click-through-rate originated in the email and banner ad world, where everything was on a desktop. With mobile, some companies now call this same metric tap-through-rate since people are tapping on their phone vs clicking on desktop, but at the end of the day it's really the same type of measurement.
A method of analyzing user behavior by grouping users based on shared characteristics — most often the date they first installed or subscribed. This allows teams to compare retention, LTV, and monetization trends across cohorts over time.
The practice of limiting access to premium content — such as videos, lessons, or tools — behind a subscription paywall. Content can be fully locked (hard paywall) or partially accessible (soft paywall) depending on the monetization strategy.
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