# Churn

The rate a [recurring-revenue](https://searchspheresource.com/glossary/mrr) business loses customers or revenue.

For anything sold on retention this is the number under the number, because a business adding customers while quietly losing them is worth far less than its [top line](https://searchspheresource.com/glossary/top-line) suggests. Ask for it by cohort rather than in aggregate: a stable overall figure can hide new customers leaving fast while a loyal old base holds the average up, and you are buying the future, not the base. Losses concentrated right after a price change or a service issue tell you which one you are inheriting.

In numbers: A gym billing $120,000 of monthly memberships at 4% monthly churn loses $4,800 of that base every month, and must sell $57,600 of new memberships a year just to stand still. At 2% churn the same gym stands still on half the sales effort, which is why the churn rate moves the multiple more than the revenue does.

Source: https://searchspheresource.com/glossary/churn
Not dated: A definition is editorial: what a term means, why it matters, and an example. None of it reads a source that can go stale, so there is no date to take and a stamped one would be the build time wearing a costume.

Site index for machines: https://searchspheresource.com/llms.txt