Customer Churn Rate = Customers Lost in Period / Customers at Start of Period x 100%
Churn is the share of customers (or revenue) lost in a period.
What it is
Churn rate measures how much of a subscription business is lost in a given period, expressed as a percentage. Customer (logo) churn counts the share of customers who cancel; revenue churn counts the share of recurring revenue lost. Revenue churn can be gross (lost revenue only) or net (lost revenue minus expansion from remaining customers).
Why it matters
Churn is the leak in the bucket: high churn forces a company to spend on new customers just to replace the ones it lost. It directly drives customer lifetime, retention, and LTV, so even small differences compound over time. Distinguishing logo churn from revenue churn matters, because losing many small accounts is very different from losing a few large ones.
How it's calculated
Divide the number of customers (or amount of recurring revenue) lost during a period by the number (or revenue) at the start of the period.
How Quintarthai uses it
Reported churn or retention figures from a company's filings can be reviewed alongside Quinn's bull/bear take on its company deep-analysis page.
Cross-border note. Churn is a non-GAAP operating metric with no regulator-set definition in Canada or the US; always confirm whether a company reports logo churn or revenue churn, and over what period, before comparing two issuers.
FAQ
What is the difference between logo churn and revenue churn?
Logo churn counts the percentage of customers lost. Revenue churn counts the percentage of recurring revenue lost, which can differ sharply if the customers who leave are unusually large or small.
Can churn be negative?
Logo churn cannot be negative, but net revenue churn can be, when expansion from remaining customers exceeds the revenue lost. Negative net revenue churn is the same as net revenue retention above 100%.
Check your understanding
A SaaS company's logo (customer) churn is 8%, but its gross revenue churn is only 2%. What does this most likely indicate?
Gross revenue churn counts only lost recurring revenue and excludes expansion, so a figure far below logo churn means the customers who left contributed relatively little revenue, i.e. they were small accounts.