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Subscription retention

Subscriptions Retention: subscription retention, MRR retention, subscription churn and MRR churn, with charts over time
Reports → Subscriptions Retention looks at each complete month: of the subscriptions active on the 1st, how many were still active at the month’s end. Cards average the months in your range. Charts show retention and churn month by month, the Monthly Breakdown table gives each month’s figures, and Expected Lifetime turns your average churn into how long a subscription lasts and what it’s worth over that time.
Only complete months count. Pick a range that includes at least one full month.

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Subscription cohorts

Subscription Cohort Retention: subscriptions grouped by start month and how many stayed active in each later month
Cohorts → Subscriptions Cohorts groups subscriptions by the month they started and follows how many stay active. Read it like a customer cohort: rows are starting months, columns are time since.
  • Rows: a cohort, the subscriptions that started in that month (or week, or year).
  • Month 1: what the cohort started with. Every later column is compared with it.
  • Month 2, 3…: how many are still active one, two… periods after the cohort began. A subscription drops out once it has ended or been cancelled, so values only go down along a row.
  • Subscriptions / MRR: count subscriptions, or add up the monthly recurring revenue of those still active.
  • # / %: the numbers themselves, or the share of the cohort’s starting point still active.
  • Average: each column averaged over the cohorts old enough to reach it. In % mode it’s the total still active divided by the total started, across those same cohorts.
  • —: the cohort hasn’t reached that period yet.
Hover any cell or column heading for an explanation. The How to read this chart link above the table opens the same guide in the app.
20 subscriptions started in March. By the start of May (two months later), 3 had been cancelled.Month 3 at 85% means 17 of March’s 20 subscriptions were still active two months after March began.
MRR % above Subscriptions % means the subscribers who stay are on bigger plans than those who leave. Below it, you’re losing your most valuable subscribers first.
What to look for
  • The drop from Month 1 to Month 2. A sharp one usually means trial or first-payment churn: look at onboarding and the first renewal.
  • Where a row levels off. After that point subscribers tend to stay, so getting customers past it matters most.
  • A column read top to bottom. If newer cohorts keep a higher share at the same age, retention is improving.
Healthy subscription businesses often keep 80% or more at month 3.