# How much revenue does churn cost your subscription store?

> Source: https://zubs.app/tools/churn-calculator
> Title: Churn Calculator: Revenue at Risk From Churn — Zubs
> Published: 2026-10-02
> Updated: 2026-10-07
> Language: en

## Short answer

Every month, churn costs you your MRR × your monthly churn rate, and the loss compounds. At 5% monthly churn, a store with no new subscribers keeps 54% of its subscriptions after 12 months: 1,000 subscriptions at €30 a month fall from €30,000 to about €16,211 MRR, about €98,005 of recurring revenue lost in the year.

## What does churn cost your store each month?

Enter your own numbers. The calculator starts on the worked example further down this page.

*Churn calculator: enter your own numbers on [the page](https://zubs.app/tools/churn-calculator). The worked example below uses the values the calculator starts with.*

All results are estimates from your inputs, not figures from your store.

## How does the churn calculator work?

It uses the same definitions as the [churn rate](https://zubs.app/glossary/subscription-churn-rate) and [MRR](https://zubs.app/glossary/mrr) glossary pages:

- **Churn rate** = cancellations in the month ÷ active subscriptions at the start of the month × 100.
- **MRR** = active subscriptions × average order value × orders per month. Orders per month come from the delivery interval: every week = 52 ÷ 12, every 2 weeks = 26 ÷ 12, every 4 weeks = 13 ÷ 12, every month = 1, every 2 months = ½, every 3 months = ⅓.
- **MRR lost in the first month** = MRR × churn rate.
- **MRR after 12 months** = MRR × (1 − churn rate)¹²: the same churn rate every month, applied to the subscriptions that are left.
- **Recurring revenue lost over 12 months** = the sum, for months 1 to 12, of MRR × (1 − (1 − churn rate)^month): what the year brings in less than it would without churn.

The calculator assumes no new subscriptions, so the result shows what churn alone takes away.

## What does 5% monthly churn cost in a year?

**Example (made-up numbers):** 1,000 active subscriptions, an average order value of €30, monthly delivery and a monthly churn rate of 5%.

| Result                                | Calculation                       | Value         |
| ------------------------------------- | --------------------------------- | ------------- |
| MRR today                             | 1,000 × €30 × 1                   | €30,000       |
| MRR lost in the first month           | €30,000 × 5%                      | €1,500        |
| Subscriptions cancelled in month 1    | 1,000 × 5%                        | 50            |
| MRR after 12 months                   | €30,000 × 0.95¹²                  | about €16,211 |
| Subscriptions left after 12 months    | 1,000 × 0.95¹²                    | about 540     |
| Recurring revenue lost over 12 months | sum of €30,000 × (1 − 0.95^month) | about €98,005 |

Bringing churn down to 4% in this example keeps about 613 subscriptions after a year instead of 540.

## What does the estimate leave out?

- **New subscriptions.** They add to MRR on top of what churn takes.
- **Changing churn.** New subscribers often cancel earlier than long-standing ones, so the real rate moves over time. The [early-churn playbook](https://zubs.app/playbooks/reduce-early-subscription-churn) covers that phase.
- **Skips, pauses and one-time add-ons.** They change billed revenue in a month but not the MRR of an active subscription.

## What should you do with your result?

Split the churn before you act on it. Cancellations need an offer that fits the reason; failed payments need retries and a way to update the card. Then check when subscribers leave: early cancellations point to your offer and first orders, later ones to the product, the interval or the price.

## How does Zubs keep subscribers longer?

Zubs answers each cancellation reason with a retention offer, lets subscribers pause or skip instead of leaving, and retries failed payments. Its analytics shows your churn rate and order value month by month, so you can check the estimate against your store. Start with the [cancellation flow](https://zubs.app/features/cancellation-flow) or the [cancellation offers playbook](https://zubs.app/playbooks/cancellation-offers).

## Bottom line

Churn costs MRR × churn rate in the first month and compounds from there: at 5% a month, more than 45% of the subscriptions are gone after a year. Every point of churn you remove keeps a share of that revenue, month after month.

## Frequently asked questions

### What if my subscribers are on different intervals?

Run the calculator once per interval and add up the results, or use a weighted average order value for your most common interval.

### Why don't new subscribers appear in the estimate?

The calculator isolates what churn takes away. New subscriptions add to MRR on top of it; your net growth is new subscriptions minus cancellations.

### Should I use a monthly or a yearly churn rate?

Monthly. The calculator applies the rate once per month for 12 months, so a yearly rate would overstate the loss.

### Is my data stored or sent anywhere?

No. The calculation runs in your browser, and nothing you enter leaves the page.

## Related

- [Glossary: subscription churn rate](https://zubs.app/glossary/subscription-churn-rate)
- [Glossary: MRR](https://zubs.app/glossary/mrr)
- [Feature: subscription analytics in Zubs](https://zubs.app/features/subscription-analytics)
- [Playbook: stop cancellations with an offer that fits the reason](https://zubs.app/playbooks/cancellation-offers)
- [Playbook: reduce early subscription churn](https://zubs.app/playbooks/reduce-early-subscription-churn)
- [Calculator: what failed payments cost you](https://zubs.app/tools/failed-payment-calculator)