Churn Rate
The percentage of users from a cohort who stop using the app over a given period.
Definition
Churn rate measures the share of users who were active at the start of a period and did not return by the end of it. It is the inverse of retention rate - if 30% of a cohort is retained at day 30, the day-30 churn rate is 70%. Teams track churn instead of (or alongside) retention because framing the loss as a rate to reduce - rather than a rate to grow - makes it easier to set alerts, compare against a target ceiling, and separate onboarding churn (users who never activated) from established-user churn (users who activated, then stopped).
Churn rate
Churn rate = 1 − (users retained at end of period ÷ users active at start of period)
Example: 1 − (300 ÷ 1,000) = 70% churn rate over 30 days
→ In practice
"Our 30-day churn rate was 81% for users who never completed onboarding, versus 34% for users who activated. That gap is why we prioritized the onboarding fix over a general re-engagement campaign."
Common questions
What is a good mobile app churn rate?
There is no universal benchmark: category, price point, and usage frequency all shift the baseline. Split churn by whether the user activated first, then track your own rate release over release rather than comparing to an industry average.
Is churn rate the same as uninstall rate?
No. Uninstall rate only counts users who removed the app, which most mobile platforms under-report. Churn rate counts anyone who stopped opening the app in the measurement window, whether or not they uninstalled it - a more complete and more actionable number.
Related terms
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