Calculating your churn rate is straightforward once you know the Churn Rate formula and what each input means. This guide explains the method in plain language, walks through a manual calculation, and gives worked examples you can follow — then you can do it instantly with the Churn Rate Calculator.
What is Churn Rate?
The Churn Rate calculation tells you your churn rate from a few simple inputs. The figure you are solving for here is the churn rate, expressed in percent.
The Churn Rate formula
The core formula is:
Churn rate = Customers lost in period ÷ Customers at start of period × 100Here is what each input means:
- Customers lost in period — a number. Example: 50.
- Customers at start of period — a number. Example: 1,000.
How to calculate it step by step
- Write down the customers lost in period (for example, 50).
- Write down the customers at start of period (for example, 1,000).
- Apply the formula above to get your churn rate.
- Double-check the result with the Churn Rate Calculator.
Worked examples
Example 1
| Input / Output | Value |
|---|---|
| Customers lost in period | 50 |
| Customers at start of period | 1,000 |
| Churn rate | 5.00% |
| Retention rate | 95.00% |
With customers lost in period of 50 and customers at start of period of 1,000, the churn rate works out to 5.00%.
Example 2
With customers lost in period of 100 and customers at start of period of 1,000, the churn rate works out to 10.00%.
| Result | Value |
|---|---|
| Churn rate | 10.00% |
| Retention rate | 90.00% |
Example 3
With customers lost in period of 25 and customers at start of period of 1,000, the churn rate works out to 2.50%.
| Result | Value |
|---|---|
| Churn rate | 2.50% |
| Retention rate | 97.50% |
Tips for an accurate result
- Keep your units consistent — mixing, say, months with years or grams with kilograms is the most common source of error.
- Round only at the very end. Rounding inputs early can shift the final answer noticeably.
- Re-run the numbers whenever an input changes, rather than estimating from an old result.
Prefer not to do the maths by hand? — the Churn Rate Calculator does it instantly, for free, with the formula and a worked example built in.
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