What is churn rate?

Churn rate is the percentage of customers (or recurring revenue) lost over a period. A SaaS company that starts a month with 200 customers and loses 6 has 3% monthly customer churn. Revenue churn weights the calculation by what those customers paid.

Churn is also a competitive metric: a meaningful share of churned customers do not stop needing the product — they switch to a rival. Exit surveys and win/loss analysis reveal which competitors are pulling customers away and what would have kept them.