Free Tool
SaaS churn rate calculator
Your monthly churn rate, what it compounds to over a year, and what failed payments are really costing you. Free, instant, no signup — the math runs in your browser.
Active paying subscribers at the start of the month.
Cancelled or churned out during the month.
Your total MRR in USD.
Share of monthly billing that fails on the first attempt. 5–15% is typical for subscriptions.
Monthly churn rate
5.0%
compounds to 46.0% annually
Churn costs you / year
$3,600
$300 MRR walking out monthly
Failed payments cost / year
$5,760
$480 fails every month
How much of that is recoverable?
With a real dunning setup, founders typically recover 30–70%of failed payments. At the mid-point, that's $2,880 / year back in your pocket — about 8.3× the cost of StayPaid ($348/yr).
Share your numbers
Download your report card or post it — founders comparing churn numbers is how we all get better.
The math we used
- Monthly churn rate = customers lost ÷ customers at start × 100
- Annual churn = 1 − (1 − monthly churn)12— churn compounds, it doesn't add
- ARPU = MRR ÷ customers = $50.00
- Failed payments = MRR × 8.0% = $480/mo
How to calculate churn rate
Monthly customer churn rate is customers lost during the month divided by customers at the start of the month, times 100. Start with 120 customers, lose 6, and your monthly churn is 5%. For revenue churn, swap customers for MRR: MRR lost to churn and downgrades divided by MRR at the start of the month.
The trap is annualizing by multiplying. Churn compounds against a shrinking base, so annual churn is 1 − (1 − monthly churn)^12. Five percent monthly is not 60% a year — it is about 46%. Still brutal, just honest. We wrote a full breakdown with every formula and worked examples in how to calculate churn rate.
The churn you can actually get back
Not all churn is a customer deciding to leave. A meaningful share of SaaS churn is involuntary: expired cards, bank declines, insufficient funds at the wrong moment. These customers still want your product — the payment just failed. That is the most recoverable revenue in your business, and most founders never follow up on it.
A real dunning setup — smart retries plus fast, personal recovery emails — typically recovers 30–70% of failed payments. Read the benchmarks in failed payment recovery rate benchmarks and average SaaS churn rate.
Want those failed payments back?
StayPaid watches your Stripe for failed payments and helps you recover them with personal emails you approve — $29/mo flat, first 3 recoveries free.
FAQ
How do you calculate churn rate?
Monthly customer churn rate = customers lost during the month ÷ customers at the start of the month × 100. If you started with 120 customers and lost 6, your monthly churn is 5%. Revenue churn uses the same formula with MRR lost instead of customers.
What is a good churn rate for a SaaS?
For small and early-stage SaaS, 3–7% monthly is common, and best-in-class products get under 2–3% monthly. Because churn compounds, 5% monthly means losing about 46% of your customers over a year — which is why even small improvements matter.
Why does annual churn look so much higher than monthly?
Churn compounds. Each month you lose a percentage of a shrinking customer base, so annual churn is 1 − (1 − monthly churn)^12, not monthly churn × 12. 5% monthly churn compounds to roughly 46% annually, not 60%.
What share of churn comes from failed payments?
It varies by business, but involuntary churn from failed payments (expired cards, bank declines, insufficient funds) is often a meaningful share of total churn — and it is the most recoverable kind, because these customers usually still want the product. A dunning process typically recovers 30–70% of failed payments.
Is this calculator really free?
Yes. No signup, no email gate, nothing stored — the math runs in your browser. We built it because founders should know their churn and failed-payment numbers before they buy anything, including StayPaid.