SaaS Churn Cohort Visualizer

See how a cohort decays month over month at your churn rate.

%
Logo churn per month for this cohort.
After 3 months
442
88% left
After 6 months
391
78% left
After 12 months
306
61% retained
After 24 months
188
38% left

At 4.0% monthly churn, only 306 of your original 500 customers (61%) remain after a year, implying an average lifespan of about 25 months. Small churn reductions extend that curve dramatically.

Monthly churn compounds, 4%/month is nearly 40% a year. Because lifespan is 1 ÷ churn, halving churn roughly doubles customer lifetime and LTV.

About this calculator

A single "monthly churn rate" hides how brutal compounding decay actually is on a cohort of real customers. This visualizer takes a starting cohort size and a monthly churn rate, then shows exactly how many customers remain at 3, 6, 12 and 24 months, plus the average customer lifetime that churn rate implies, the number that quietly determines your LTV.

How to use it

  1. Enter your starting cohort size, the number of customers who signed up in a given period.
  2. Enter your monthly logo churn rate for that cohort.
  3. Read how many customers survive at 3, 6, 12 and 24 months, plus the percentage retained at each point.
  4. Note the average customer lifespan the tool derives, this is the number to plug into any LTV calculation.

Methodology

Survivors at month m are calculated as cohort size times (1 minus monthly churn) raised to the power of m, standard exponential decay. This is the correct way to model churn: a fixed percentage of the remaining base is lost each month, not a fixed percentage of the original cohort, so the absolute number lost shrinks over time even as the rate stays constant.

Average customer lifespan is derived as 1 divided by the monthly churn rate (as a decimal). At 4% monthly churn that's 25 months; at 2% it's 50 months, this is why halving churn roughly doubles both lifespan and lifetime value, a disproportionate lever compared to most growth tactics.

The tool grades churn into three bands, 2% or under as good, up to 4% as a caution zone, and above 4% as concerning, reflecting that monthly churn compounds annually (4% monthly compounds to nearly 40% annual churn, not 48%, because the base shrinks each month).

This is a single-cohort model: it assumes a constant churn rate applied uniformly to everyone in the cohort. Real cohorts often churn faster in the first few months (early-life churn) and slower once customers are embedded, so treat the curve as a simplified average, not a precise prediction for any individual account.

FAQ

Why does the customer count shrink slower over time even at a constant churn rate?

Because churn is applied to whatever's left, not to the original cohort. Losing 4% of 500 customers in month one is 20 people; losing 4% of the 480 who remain in month two is only 19.2. The absolute losses taper even though the percentage rate never changes.

How is average lifespan calculated, and why does it matter?

It's 1 divided by the monthly churn rate. It matters because customer lifetime value is typically calculated as ARPA times gross margin times average lifespan, so this single derived number feeds directly into your LTV, and therefore your LTV:CAC ratio.

Does this account for expansion revenue from surviving customers?

No, this tool tracks logo count only, how many customers remain, not revenue per customer. If your surviving customers expand their spend over time, actual retained ARR can look much healthier than retained logo count alone.

What churn rate should I benchmark against?

It varies heavily by segment: SMB/self-serve products often run 3-7% monthly churn, while enterprise contracts with annual commitments can be under 1%. Compare your number against your own segment's typical range rather than a single universal target.