Subscriber - Churn
Introduction
Churn is the flip side of retention: it measures the subscribers you lose and, just as importantly, the revenue that leaves with them. The Churn tab breaks every loss down by how it happened, so you can tell the difference between customers who chose to leave and customers you lost to failed payments — two very different problems with two very different fixes.
Reducing churn is the highest-leverage thing most subscription stores can do. Keeping an existing subscriber is far cheaper than acquiring a new one, and every point of churn you prevent flows straight into recurring revenue.
Understanding the three types of churn
Every churned subscriber falls into one of three types. Knowing the mix is the key to fixing the right problem:
| Churn type | What it means | How to reduce it |
|---|---|---|
| Active churn | The subscriber's last subscription was canceled manually — by the customer through the Customer Portal, or by you through the Admin. | Improve the value and experience with a Cancellation Flow, save offers, skip/pause options. |
| Passive churn | The subscription was auto-canceled by Payment Recovery after all retry attempts failed. The customer didn't choose to leave — a payment did. | Tighten your Payment Recovery (dunning) settings, add card-update reminders. |
| Expired churn | The subscription reached its end date, completed all prepaid charges, or hit the maximum number of allowed charges. | Offer a renewal or re-subscribe prompt before the plan ends. |
The most encouraging insight here is that passive churn is often recoverable revenue — these customers still want your product; a failed card is the only thing standing between them and another order.
How to open the Churn report
Step 1: Navigate to Analytics in the Joy Subscriptions sidebar.
Step 2: Select Subscriber from the page title dropdown.
Step 3: Click the Churn tab. Use the date range picker in the filter bar to set your reporting period.
Churn subscribers
This donut chart shows the total number of subscribers who no longer have any active subscription during the period, split into active, passive, and expired churn.
Churn subscribers = Active churn + Passive churn + Expired churnChurn is recorded the day after a subscriber's last subscription is canceled. The center of the donut shows your total; hover over each segment to see how many subscribers left through each channel.
Subscriber churn rate
This funnel expresses your churn as a percentage of your subscriber base, so you can compare periods fairly even as your base grows.
Subscriber churn rate = Churned subscribers in period ÷ (Active at start of period + New in period) × 100For example, 150 churned subscribers against a base of 1,000 is a 15% churn rate. This is the single number to trend over time — if it climbs, revenue growth will slow even when acquisition is strong.
Churned MRR
Losing subscribers isn't just a headcount problem — it's a revenue problem. This donut shows the Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) you lose when subscribers churn, broken down by the same three types.
Churned MRR = Total MRR of the subscription(s) cancelled when the subscriber churns
MRR = Subscription price × (30 ÷ billing interval in days)Only the revenue lost at the moment a subscriber fully churns is counted — earlier cancellations that still left the subscriber with an active plan aren't included. Comparing Churned MRR to your Churn subscribers count reveals whether you're losing low-value or high-value subscribers: if a small number of churned subscribers accounts for a large share of MRR, your most valuable customers are the ones leaving, and that deserves urgent attention.
Trends over time
Below the summary cards, three time-series charts show how churn is developing across the period. Each is broken down by churn type so you can see which channel is driving change:
| Chart | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Churn subscribers over time | The number of subscribers who churned at each interval. |
| Churn rate over time | The percentage of active subscribers who churned at each interval. |
| Churned MRR over time | The recurring revenue lost to churn at each interval. |
Use these to catch spikes early. A sudden jump in passive churn often lines up with a payment-processor issue or a batch of expiring cards, while a rise in active churn may follow a price change or a shipping delay.
Tips and best practices
- Attack passive churn first — it's usually the fastest win. These subscribers wanted to stay, so improving your Payment Recovery retry schedule and adding card-update emails can recover revenue with no new acquisition spend.
- Reduce active churn with your Cancellation Flow. Offering a skip, pause, discount, or product swap at the moment of cancellation keeps many subscribers who would otherwise leave for good.
- Watch Churned MRR alongside Churn subscribers. Losing ten low-value subscribers is not the same as losing ten high-value ones — the MRR view tells you which is happening.
- Get ahead of expired churn by prompting subscribers to renew or re-subscribe before their plan reaches its end date or final prepaid charge.
- Cross-reference churn with the Retention tab to see when subscribers tend to leave, and with LTV to understand how much value each churned subscriber had already delivered.
Overall
The Churn tab turns lost subscribers into an action plan. By separating active, passive, and expired churn — and by showing both the subscriber count and the MRR behind each — it tells you not just how much you're losing, but exactly which lever to pull to lose less. Start by tackling passive churn through Payment Recovery, reduce active churn with your Cancellation Flow, and keep a close eye on Churned MRR to protect your most valuable subscribers.