Outbound & SalesMarketing Glossary

Churn

Churn is the rate at which customers cancel their subscriptions. It's the silent killer of SaaS businesses — even small monthly churn compounds into catastrophic annual losses. Gross revenue churn measures revenue lost from cancellations. Net revenue churn (or NRR) accounts for expansion from remaining customers. A business can have positive NRR even with some customer churn if expansions are strong enough.

Real-World Example

For example, a 3% monthly logo churn sounds manageable but means you're replacing 36% of your customer base every year — an enormous burden on your acquisition engine that makes growth much harder.

At Cactus

We pay close attention to churn signals in our client audits — high churn often points to a product-market fit issue that marketing can't fix alone.

Relevant Cactus Services

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