Skip to content
GetProfit
Log in

← All terms

Churn rate

Churn rate is the share of a store's customers who stop buying, counted as those with no order within a chosen period.

How it works

A subscriber churns by cancelling, but a store’s customer never cancels: they stop ordering. So the store chooses an inactivity window and counts a customer as churned once that window passes without an order. The window sets the figure: the shorter it is, the more customers count as lost, including those who were only between two orders. The window depends on purchase frequency, which differs by category.

Churn and customer retention rate describe the same customers from two sides, and both change with the window you choose. Win-back messages go to the customers the window marks as lapsing, so the same window also sets the timing of post-purchase emails. There is no single benchmark: it depends on the category and the window.

Formula

Customers with no order within the window ÷ customers at the start of the period

Ways to calculate

Example

Example store, not client data.

On 1 January the tableware shop has 2,000 customers who ordered last year. By 30 June, 1,300 of them have not ordered again: with a six-month window, churn = 1,300 ÷ 2,000 = 65%. By 31 December, 1,100 still have not ordered: with a twelve-month window, churn = 1,100 ÷ 2,000 = 55%. The same customers give two figures with two windows.

Not to be confused with

  • Customer retention rate — the share of customers who stayed. It equals 100% minus churn only when both count the same starting customers over the same window.

Right and wrong readings

  • Wrong: “A churn of 65% means 65% of customers are gone for good.” Right: 200 of those 1,300 ordered in the second half of the year. The six-month window counted them as lost.
  • Wrong: “GA4 returning users are the customers who did not churn.” Right: GA4 calls a user returning with one or more previous sessions. That is a visit, not an order.

Sources