High Churn Rate: 300 Customers, 30 Lost
Losing 30 out of 300 customers results in a 10% monthly churn rate, meaning the entire customer base turns over roughly every 10 months.
How to use this tool
- Enter the number of active customers at the start of the period.
- Enter how many of those customers you lost during the period (exclude new signups).
- Read your churn rate, retention rate, customers retained, and implied average lifetime.
A 10% monthly churn rate is unsustainable for most SaaS businesses — at this rate a company must replace 120% of its customer base each year to show any net growth.
Frequently asked questions
- What is a good churn rate?
- It depends heavily on segment. Many established SaaS businesses target monthly customer churn under 1–2%; small-business and consumer products often run higher. Lower is better, and the best companies achieve negative net revenue churn through expansion.
- Should I exclude new customers from the calculation?
- Yes. Churn measures losses among customers who already existed at the start of the period. Including new signups in the lost-customer count, or in the denominator mid-period, distorts the rate. Use the start-of-period base.
- How does churn relate to customer lifetime?
- Average lifetime is approximately 1 divided by the churn rate, in the same time units. A 5% monthly churn implies an average lifetime of about 20 months. This approximation assumes churn stays roughly constant over time.