Team Churnkey
Team Churnkey
Research and guides from the Churnkey team, built on retention data from over 200M subscriptions.
Car Wash Membership Retention
14 tactics to reduce car wash membership churn (with real data)
Car wash churn looks like one problem. The data suggests it's actually two, with very different fixes for each. This guide covers 14 tactics and 30 data points on what's actually working.
Churnkey Lab
How do retention dynamics evolve on the path to $100M ARR?
We tested where conventional wisdom holds and where it breaks as companies scale, using data from Churnkey.
Churnkey Lab
Involuntary churn benchmarks and tactical advice
This report combines data from Stripe with Churnkey's retention suite to bring you the most comprehensive churn insights on involuntary churn.
Churnkey Lab
Voluntary churn benchmarks and tactical advice
This report combines data from Stripe with Churnkey's retention suite to bring you the most comprehensive churn insights on voluntary churn.
Churnkey Lab
Discounts don’t devalue your brand (when done right)
Customers who accept a discount stay 5.1 months longer on average. 11% remain subscribers over a year later, even after the discount expires. Churnkey helps you create the most effective cancellation flow.
Churnkey Lab
The complete guide to seasonality: we analyzed $2 billion and millions of subscriptions
Data reveals a clear pattern: July has the highest churn rates across SaaS companies. This means people actively go to the cancel button, even though some may change their mind later.
Stripe
Stripe smart retries: FAQs and best practices
What should your Stripe Smart Retries settings be set to in order to maximize revenue recovery?
Stripe
Stripe auto renewal reminders: should you enable?
There is a single a single toggle to turn auto renewal email notifications for everyone or off for everyone. So should you turn it on?
Stripe
Stripe expired card emails: worth turning on?
Send an expiring card email 1 month before the card expires. Here's how to do it. But should you do it?
Stripe
Stripe: should you send emails on successful payments?
Stripe offers a way for its customers to send emails on successful payments. Say, when a charge goes through. Should you set it up?
Stripe
Stripe dunning: best practices and limitations
The recommended settings for Stripe Smart Retries, Emails, and Expiring Cards.
Stripe
The 4 ways to set up cancel surveys in Stripe: from easiest to most effective
You know you need a cancel flow. You just don’t know what your options in Stripe are. Start here. We’ll walk you through four Stripe-compatible methods, from the fastest fix to the most effective.
Stripe
How to pause subscriptions in Stripe and the smarter alternative with Churnkey
Pausing subscriptions in Stripe sounds simple—until you look closer. We break down Stripe's native setup vs. Churnkey's smarter alternative: pros, cons, and a guide to doing it right. Read before you choose how to handle pauses in Stripe.
Stripe
How to do trial extensions in Stripe (and when it’s not enough)
Trial extensions turn “almost‑there” users into paying subscribers without discounts. Below is a dense, no‑fluff guide: first the native‑Stripe method, and then why Churnkey is the faster, higher‑leverage option.
Retention
10 customer retention KPIs & metrics: with free KPI dashboard
Understand 10 customer retention KPIs and metrics to see how well you retain your customers. Plus, explore several ways to improve them.
Articles
Revenue growth rate: meaning, calculator, best practices
IBM saw negative revenue growth rate while SpaceX saw a 63% revenue growth rate. Learn how to calculate and improve your revenue growth rate.
Churn
Churn analytics: easiest way to calculate and track
The six cardinal churn analytics to track are: revenue churn, customer churn, involuntary churn, voluntary churn, retention cohorts and cake charts. Churnkey is the easiest way to keep a pulse on them.
Churn
Outsourced churn management: who, how, and alternatives
You can work with someone from the Reforge Collective, Growthmentor, churn focused advisors like Dan Layfied. Another way to search would be to look for people who have written about churn on Substack or has created Reforge artifacts.
Articles
The best churn management software platforms in 2026 (ranked and reviewed)
What is the best software for churn management? Find out with this comparative guide.
Retention
17 customer retention examples from successful companies
What do billion dollar companies know about retention that others don't? This is a list of examples from Oreo, Spotify, Calendly, Canva, and many more.
Retention
Acting on your churn data
How to reduce high voluntary and involuntary churn? How to win back lost users? How to predict at-risk customers? And how to truly understand why users churn?
Churn
Churned ARR: how to track it?
Learn how to calculate churned ARR across different tools. Understand why tracking churn is the most critical metric of your subscription business.
Articles
Customer offboarding: meaning, templates, best practices
Not all churn is bad—what if the door customers exit through could bring them back? Discover how thoughtful offboarding flows, insights, and strategic touchpoints turn churn into a growth opportunity.
Articles
9 dunning emails examples with do's and don'ts
Dunning email examples from companies like Duolingo, Canva, Slack, Spotify and more.
Articles
Dunning process: 15 best practices
Learn how to retry intelligently, escalate communications, send targeted emails to admins and users, proactively notify via SMS, enable one-click reactivation, offer grace periods, personalize and segment campaigns, track churn metrics, and employ five additional tactics.
Retention
Renewal rate vs retention rate: the differences
Renewal rate works for subscription businesses whereas retention rate works for all businesses. See the most important differences between the two and how to improve them.
Tools
Post-money valuation calculator
Calculate post-money valuation of a company and the investor share (%) with the investment amount and pre-money valuation.
Tools
SaaS ARR calculator and benchmarks
With our interactive ARR calculator, discover how each component—new ARR, expansion, churn, and more—affects your bottom line. Learn why reducing churn, even by a small percentage, can create significant long-term gains, and explore how benchmarks help you set ambitious, achievable growth targets.
Tools
SaaS LTV calculators: four formulas, benchmarks
To calculate the LTV, there are four different formulas. They're used in slightly different contexts and can yield different results.
Tools
SaaS MRR calculator and benchmarks
With our interactive MRR calculator, discover how each component—new MRR, expansion, churn, and more—affects your bottom line. Learn why reducing churn, even by a small percentage, can create significant long-term gains, and explore how benchmarks help you set ambitious, achievable growth targets.
Tools
SaaS valuation calculator: how churn, growth rate, and profit impacts valuation
We've been through the trenches ourselves. First by selling our bootstrapped company, Wavve, to Calm Capital, and more recently raising $1.5 million for Churnkey’s growth. These experiences taught us what really drives investor value in the SaaS landscape. Most SaaS valuation calculators focus only on growth rate
Retention
Recipes for Churnkey Cancel Flows
A long list of ideas to show you what's possible with Churnkey.
Churn
Membership churn: benchmarks, calculator and best practices to improve churn
Membership churn refers to the percentage of members who cancel or do not renew their subscriptions over a given period. View membership churn rates of gyms, Costco, Amazon Prime and WeWork.
Articles
Average churn rates for subscription services: data from 8 industries
SaaS averages at 4-6% churn rates per month. While ecommerce subscriptions hover at 10-15%. Telecom is lower at 1-2%.
Tools
Convert annual to monthly churn: calculator, formula, benchmarks
High annual churn is devastating. Annual churn rates above 70% lead would be catastrophic for most businesses. Here's a simple way to calculate it.
Articles
Passive churn: 9 best practices to fix passive churn
Passive churn happens when customers are lost due to issues like failed payments or billing errors, without actively choosing to leave. Thankfully, there are ways to reduce passive churn.
Articles
Unusually high churn rate: benchmarks and how to fix?
Anything over 46% annual churn ie 5% monthly is high for B2B mid-market and B2C companies. For enterprises, anything above 22% annual or 2% monthly is considered high.
Decline Codes
Stripe card not supported decline code: meaning, stats, and how to fix?
Card Not Supported refers to when transactions are refused due to card type restriction, geographic restriction, or bank policies. It's a hard decline so the best thing to do is to nicely ask customers to enter a new card.
Decline Codes
Stripe card velocity exceeded decline code: meaning, stats, and how to fix?
Card Exceeded Decline refers to when transactions are refused because customers exceeds the balance or the transaction limit (# or $). You can let the customer know and make it easy for them to enter a new card. It's a hard decline which means merchants cannot retry the payment.
Decline Codes
Restricted card decline code (62): meaning, stats, and how to fix?
Restricted card refers to when transactions are refused because the card is reported lost or stolen. You can let the customer know and make it easy for them to enter a new card. It's a hard decline which means you cannot retry the payment.
Decline Codes
Stolen card decline code: meaning, stats, and how to fix?
Stolen cards are an unusual payment error returned by banks. This occurs when fraudsters test the validity of stolen cards on your site. It’s a hard decline, meaning you cannot retry the payment.
Decline Codes
Call issuer decline code: meaning, stats, and how to fix?
Call Issuer refers to when transactions are refused by banks or financial institutions. The ask is to call the issuer. It's a soft decline.
Decline Codes
Stripe generic decline code: meaning, stats, and how to fix?
Generic Decline refers to when transactions are refused by banks or financial institutions. You can let the customer know and make it easy for them to enter a new card. It's a soft decline which means you can retry within certain limits.
Decline Codes
Stripe authentication required: meaning and how to fix?
The authentication_required code means the transaction needs more verification, usually through 3D Secure. Proper handling of this code can lead to successful transactions and improved security.
Decline Codes
Do Not Honor decline: meaning, stats, and how to fix?
"Do Not Honor" is a catch-all decline code used when a bank rejects a transaction without providing a specific reason. See what you can do recover revenue from it.
Articles
How to calculate annual churn rate: five formulas, benchmarks
To calculate the annual churn rate, there are five different formulas. They're used in slightly different contexts and can yield different results.
Tools
Convert monthly to annual churn: calculator, formula, benchmarks
High monthly churn is devastating. Monthly churn rates above 10% lead to annual churn rates over 70%, which would be catastrophic for most businesses.
Tools
Renewal rate: 15 tactical ideas to improve and a calculator
Is your renewal rate healthy? When do users disable auto-renew? How to calculate renewal rates for subscription vs. transactional models? A comprehensive list of tactical ideas across product, organization, payment, psychology, and outreach.
Retention
Retention cohort analysis: four simple ways
There are four ways to analyze a churn or retention cohort chart. Vertically, horizontally, diagonally, and by monitoring outlier events.
Decline Codes
Hard vs soft declines: definition, calculator, strategies
Soft declines are temporary issues (e.g., insufficient funds, credit limit exceeded) that can be resolved with precision retries and dunning campaigns. Hard declines are permanent issues (e.g., stolen cards, account closures) and require customer intervention via dunning campaigns.
Churn
How to interview churned customers?
Interviewing churned customers is a great way to get qualitative feedback to your team. This article shows how you can automate feedback collection with Churnkey.
Retention
Customer retention curve: calculator, definition, examples
There are four types of retention curves: declining, flat, and smile curve. You measure active users (# or % or $) on the x axis. And how that number changes over time.
Churn
Escape involuntary churn and make it past(due)
All involuntary churn issues like payment processing errors, logging out, switching emails, expired credit cards, limit reached, address change and how to solve them.
Retention
Retention automation separates growth heroes from growth zeroes
Even a 1% improvement in your retention rate can increase your growth ceiling or MRR by 10%. Retention automation is what makes it a reality.
Tools
Churn rate vs retention rate: two sides of the same coin?
Like the two-faced Greek God, Janus, retention rate and churn rate are intertwined.
Articles
Gross churn vs net churn: calculator, formulas, and tactical tips
If you can't measure gross churn, you can't improve it. This article will not just show you how to measure it, but also proactively measure it for you with an interactive calculator. And then we will also offer lots of tactical tips alongside tool recommendations to make it happen.
Churn
Revenue churn and its common pitfalls
Revenue churn is the loss of revenue from existing customers over a specific period, which can occur through cancellations, downgrades, or non-renewals.
![Calculate customer retention rate and revenue retention [calculator]](/images/blog/customer-retention-rate-calculator/retention-rate-calculator-2.webp)
Retention
Calculate customer retention rate and revenue retention [calculator]
A free customer retention rate calculator to understand the health of your business. Learn how calculating dollar retention rate can change the trajectory of your subscription business.
Articles
Customer exit survey: 21 templates, questions, and best practices
A massive vault of of 21 templates, done-for-you exit surveys, and a tactical list of best practices to build your best customer exit survey.
Articles
Post webinar - tactical ideas
Get better at subscription retention with detailed tutorials, case studies, opinion pieces from industry experts, product updates that help you grow.