Churn and customer lifetime value calculator
Churn is the share of customers who leave each month. From it you can estimate how long a customer stays and how much they bring in over that time. Enter how many customers you had at the start of the month, how many you lost, the average monthly revenue per customer and your margin.
What a customer pays you on average each month
What you keep after direct costs. If you don’t know, leave 100
Monthly churn
5%
Monthly retention
95%
Average customer lifetime
20
20 months
Customers lost in a year
184
If churn and customer count stay the same
Customer lifetime value (CLV)
420
Average gross profit from one customer
What if churn drops by 1 point?
CLV would go from 420 to 525.
The calculation runs in your browser. We don’t store what you type.
How it’s calculated
Monthly churn = customers lost in the month / customers at the start of the month × 100. Retention is 100 − churn.
Average customer lifetime (in months) = 1 / churn. For example, with 5% churn a customer stays 20 months on average.
CLV = average monthly revenue per customer × gross margin % × average lifetime. It’s the gross profit a customer brings over their whole relationship with you.
This is a simple model: it assumes churn stays the same every month. Count only the customers you had at the start, not the ones who joined during the month.
How to read the result
- Small changes in churn move CLV a lot. That’s why the calculator shows what happens if you cut churn by 1 point.
- Compare CLV with what it costs you to win a new customer. If acquiring one costs more than they bring in, you lose money on every sale.
- Normal churn varies a lot by industry and customer type. The most useful thing is to track your own churn month to month.
- Ask the people who leave why they do. The reasons repeat, and tackling the top two or three is usually the fastest way to lower churn.
Frequently asked questions
- What’s the difference between churn and retention?
- They are two sides of the same number. If you lose 4% of your customers in a month, you keep 96%.
- Why use margin and not revenue?
- Because what you keep from each customer is the profit, not what they pay. Using full revenue inflates CLV. If you don’t know your margin, enter 100% and treat the result as an upper bound.
- How do I find out why customers leave?
- With a short cancellation survey. SurvIQ has a free template you can send by link, email or WhatsApp, and you see the answers in real-time charts.
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