Customer Retention Rate Calculator
Measures the percentage of existing customers a business keeps over a given period. Use it monthly or quarterly to track loyalty, reduce churn, and benchmark against industry standards.
About this calculator
Customer Retention Rate (CRR) tells you what fraction of your existing customer base stayed with you over a period — ignoring new customers acquired during that same window. The formula is: CRR = ((customersEnd − newCustomers) / customersStart) × 100. Here, customersEnd is total customers at the end of the period, newCustomers is the count acquired during the period, and customersStart is the count at the beginning. Subtracting new customers from the ending total isolates only those who were already customers at the start. A CRR of 100% means zero churn, while anything below signals lost customers. Most SaaS businesses target 85–95% annual retention, while e-commerce benchmarks vary widely by category.
How to use
Suppose you started January with 500 customers (customersStart = 500). During the month you gained 80 new customers (newCustomers = 80), and ended with 530 customers (customersEnd = 530). Step 1: subtract new customers from the end count — 530 − 80 = 450 retained customers. Step 2: divide by the starting count — 450 / 500 = 0.90. Step 3: multiply by 100 — CRR = 90%. This means 90% of your original customers stayed, and 50 churned during January.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good customer retention rate for a SaaS business?
Most SaaS companies consider an annual retention rate above 85% healthy, with best-in-class products reaching 90–95%. Monthly retention should typically stay above 95% to compound into strong annual figures. Rates below 80% annually often signal serious product-market fit or customer success issues. Benchmarks also vary by price point — enterprise contracts typically see higher retention than self-serve, low-cost plans.
How is customer retention rate different from churn rate?
Retention rate and churn rate are direct inverses of each other. If your retention rate is 90%, your churn rate is 10% (100 − 90). Retention rate focuses on who stayed, while churn rate focuses on who left. Both metrics use the same underlying data, so you only need to calculate one to know the other. Most growth-focused teams track retention, while support teams often monitor churn to flag at-risk accounts.
Why should new customers be excluded from the retention rate calculation?
New customers acquired during the measurement period have never had a chance to churn — including them would artificially inflate the retention figure. The formula deliberately subtracts new customers from the end-of-period total to isolate only those who were already customers at the start. This gives a clean view of loyalty among your existing base. Mixing new and existing customers would make it impossible to distinguish between a growing-but-churning business and a truly sticky one.