Is Your Subscription Churn Good or Bad? Here's My Benchmark
"Is my churn good or bad?" is the question I get on almost every call with a subscription brand. The honest answer is that industry benchmark reports can mislead you, because churn only means something in the context of your growth rate, your vertical, and your offer. In this episode, I break down the churn benchmark I actually use with clients, why single digits should be your baseline, and how to set retention goals you can realistically hit. What we cover: • Why platform benchmark reports fall apart without context on size, vertical, and growth • The baseline I give every brand: single-digit monthly churn, and why 15% makes it hard to scale • How aggressive growth pulls in non-ideal subscribers and pushes churn higher (and why hyperscalers can tolerate it for a while) • Calculating average monthly churn, plus why skincare, supplements, and meal plans perform so differently • Looking at churn by cohort: month one versus month nine, and what first-week cancellations tell you about your offer • What high first-month churn says about offers that are too good to be true or ship too much product • Setting realistic churn goals: 15% to 12%, 10% to 7%, not a straight jump to 5% • When to focus on retention levers (onboarding, billing reminders, cancel flows, dunning, winbacks) versus restructuring the offer with bulk subscriptions and starter kits Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly doses just like this one: https://newsletter.thesubscrip... Check out our partners at Omnisend and get 30% off your first 3 months when you use code SUBDOC30: https://your.omnisend.com/mattholman
