Blog
The Churnkey blog
Retention research, product launches, and customer interviews from the team building Churnkey.
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.
Product Releases
Launch: billing contacts API, Payment Recovery campaign previews, and more
If your product supports multiple seats or roles, payment recovery campaigns can get tricky. Who's the right person to contact? Should you loop in multiple people? How does that even work? With our Billing Contacts API, we'll solve this for you.
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
News
The end of the FTC's 'click-to-cancel' rule: what SaaS companies need to know now
The rule requires businesses to make it just as easy for consumers to cancel a subscription as it was to sign up. This means no more forcing customers to jump through hoops, interact with representatives, or dig through dark UX patterns to cancel a service.
News
Understanding the FTC's new negative option rule and its impact on free trials
One of the most important clarifications in the updated rule is that negative option features don’t always start with an actual purchase — free trials are a key example.
News
A simple FTC compliance checklist
This checklist is designed to guide you through the key steps needed to stay compliant with the FTC’s Click to Cancel ruling.
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
Join Churnkey at Pendomonium 2024: connect, learn, and reduce churn like a pro
Churnkey is sponsoring Pendomonium 2024 in Raleigh, NC from October 7-9, where we will meet product managers and SaaS founders working on churn.
Product Releases
Launch: churn metrics to track and improve churn
You can’t improve what you don’t measure—and that’s especially true for retention. At Churnkey, we know retention is the lifeblood of every subscription business, which is why we’re excited to launch Churn Metrics. 🎉 With Churn Metrics, you’ll instantly access insights like churn rate, voluntary
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.
Product Releases
Launch: SMS Payment Recovery
SMS is a natural extension of our payment recovery ecosystem, performing 3-4x better than email campaigns. Better yet, SMS doesn't add any more burden to your dunning campaign setup.
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.