Customer Retention Rate Calculator
Type how many customers you had at the start of a period, how many you had at the end and how many of those were new. The calculator gives the retention rate, the churn rate and the customers you kept and lost, shows what the same rate does over 12 months, and works out your repeat purchase rate from two more numbers.
- Free
- No sign-up
- Runs in your browser
Result
Type the customers at the start, at the end and the new ones (0 if none) to see the rate.
Rates are rounded to two decimals. The 12-month figure assumes the same rate in every period.
How the rates are worked out
Retention looks only at the customers you started with
New customers are taken out of the end count first, so they cannot hide the ones who left. Customers kept = customers at the end - new customers. Retention rate = customers kept ÷ customers at the start × 100.
Churn is the other side of the same count
Churn rate = customers lost ÷ customers at the start × 100, which is always 100 minus the retention rate. A business can grow in total customers and still lose a large share of the people it had, so the change in total customers is shown next to the churn.
The same rate over 12 months
A monthly rate compounds. If 85% stay each month, 85% of that 85% are left after two months, and so on: retention after 12 months = monthly retention to the power of 12. It assumes every period repeats the rate you typed, which a real year rarely does, so read it as a scale and not as a forecast.
Average time a customer stays
If the churn rate holds, the average customer stays 1 ÷ churn rate periods. A 15% monthly churn is 1 ÷ 0.15 = 6.7 months. When nobody left there is no figure to show.
Repeat purchase rate
A different question with its own two numbers: of the customers who bought in the period, how many bought two or more times. It suits shops and restaurants, where nobody cancels a plan and a customer simply stops coming.
What counts as a customer
You decide, and the rule has to be the same at both ends: an active plan for a subscription, or anyone who bought inside a window you choose for a shop. Customers who left and came back count as new. If the calculator says you kept more customers than you started with, the definition changed between the two counts.
Formulas
- Customers kept
- customers at the end - new customers
- Retention rate
- customers kept ÷ customers at the start × 100
- Churn rate
- (customers at the start - customers kept) ÷ customers at the start × 100
- Change in total customers
- (customers at the end - customers at the start) ÷ customers at the start × 100
- Retention after 12 months
- (retention rate ÷ 100) ^ periods in a year × 100
- Average stay
- 1 ÷ (churn rate ÷ 100), in periods
- Repeat purchase rate
- customers with two or more purchases ÷ customers who bought × 100
Customers come back to a business they can find again
VISU Local gives your business a free page with address, map, hours and phone, plus a Google review QR for the counter, so the customers who do come back can say so. VISU does not run points or stamp cards.
Create your free pageSee VISU LocalHow to use it
- Choose the period you are measuring: a month, a quarter or a year.
- Type the customers you had at the start of the period and at the end of it.
- Type how many of the customers at the end are new, won during the period. Type 0 if there were none.
- Read the retention rate, the churn rate and the customers kept and lost. For the repeat purchase rate, add the customers who bought and how many of them bought two or more times.
Examples
A month in a subscription business
Made-up numbers to show the maths: 200 customers at the start of the month, 210 at the end, 40 of them new. Customers kept = 210 - 40 = 170, so the retention rate is 85% and the churn rate is 15%: 30 customers left. Total customers still grew 5%.
What that month means over a year
Repeating 85% for 12 months leaves 14.22% of the starting customers. At a 15% monthly churn the average customer stays 6.7 months.
A quarter in a gym
500 members at the start of the quarter, 520 at the end, 70 of them new: 450 kept, a retention rate of 90% and a churn rate of 10%. Four quarters at that rate leave 65.61% after a year.
Repeat purchase rate of a coffee shop
180 customers bought during the month and 63 of them bought two or more times: the repeat purchase rate is 35%.
Questions
How do you calculate customer retention rate?
Take the customers at the end of the period, subtract the new customers won during it, divide by the customers at the start and multiply by 100. With 200 at the start, 210 at the end and 40 new: (210 - 40) ÷ 200 × 100 = 85%.
What is the difference between retention rate and churn rate?
They are two readings of the same count. Retention is the share of the starting customers who stayed and churn is the share who left, so the two always add up to 100%: an 85% retention rate is a 15% churn rate.
What is a good customer retention rate?
There is no number that fits every business: it depends on what you sell and how often people need it. The comparison that tells you something is your own history, with the same period length and the same definition of customer: this month against last month, and against the same month a year ago.
Why are new customers taken out?
Because growth hides churn. Going from 200 to 210 customers looks like a 5% gain, yet 30 of the original 200 left in the same month. Retention measures only the people you already had.
What is repeat purchase rate?
The share of the customers who bought in a period that bought two or more times in it. If 63 of 180 buyers came back, the repeat purchase rate is 35%. Use it when there is no subscription to cancel.
Which period should I use?
The one that matches how often people buy from you: a month for a subscription or a coffee shop, a quarter or a year for something bought a few times a year. Never compare a monthly rate with a yearly one: 85% a month is 14.22% after 12 months.
Can customer retention be above 100%?
No. You cannot keep more customers than you started with, and the calculator refuses numbers that say so. Revenue retention can pass 100% when the customers who stay spend more, but that is a different measure and it is not calculated here.
Are my numbers stored?
No. The maths runs in your browser. Your customer counts are not uploaded, are not added to the page address and are not saved.