Growth
Retention rate
By Rubén García · 3 min
The share of customers or users who keep buying or using your product after a period of time.
It's the customers still active at the end of a period divided by those at the start, not counting new ones.
Example: you start the month with 100 customers and 80 buy again. Your retention rate is 80%.
It's the third stage of the AARRR model and often the one that lets the most money slip away. According to Harvard Business Review (1990), losing 5% fewer customers can raise profits by 25% to 85%, depending on the industry.
To see it in Google Analytics, use the retention report or a cohort exploration (groups of users who started in the same week).
Watch out: always compare the same period. 7-day and 90-day retention can't be compared.
