Churn is the "silent hemorrhage" of the business. At 3% monthly you lose almost a third of your base every year, even while acquiring new customers. It is the metric that most impacts long-term growth.
SaaS: Stripe → Billing → Churn analytics gives you monthly cancellation directly. Without Stripe, calculate it: customers who cancelled this month ÷ active customers at the start of the month. Fintech: users who stopped transacting or closed their account this month ÷ active users at the start of the month. Edtech: students who cancelled their subscription this month, from your course platform.
High churn makes the business appear to grow (you acquire customers) but in reality you are on a treadmill. All the marketing budget goes to replace what was lost, not to grow the base.
| Status | Range |
|---|---|
| Healthy | < 2%/mo (< 21% annual) |
| Alert | 2–4%/mo (21–40% annual) |
| Critical | > 4%/mo (> 40% annual) |
Before investing in acquisition, diagnose why customers who cancel in the first 90 days leave. Early churn is almost always an onboarding problem or expectations poorly managed during the sales process.
← Calculate your Monthly Churn free on Unit Economics Calculator