Subscription Metrics Glossary: MRR, Churn, LTV and More

Running a membership or subscription business means living by a handful of numbers. Here's a plain-English glossary of the ones that matter — no finance degree required.

MRR — Monthly Recurring Revenue

The predictable revenue your active subscriptions produce each month. Normalize everything to monthly: a $120/year plan contributes $10 of MRR. It's the single best gauge of subscription health.

Related: ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) is simply MRR × 12.

Churn rate

The percentage of subscribers — or revenue — you lose in a period.

Customer churn = cancellations ÷ active subscribers at the start of the period.

5% monthly churn means you'd lose your entire base in under two years with no new members. Watch the trend, not just one month.

Involuntary vs voluntary churn

• Involuntary: the member leaves because a payment failed (expired card, decline). Usually 20–40% of churn and highly recoverable.
• Voluntary: the member actively cancels.

Splitting the two tells you whether you have a payment problem or a value problem.

ARPU — Average Revenue Per User

Total recurring revenue ÷ number of active subscribers. A quick read on how much each member is worth on average; useful for spotting whether upsells or tier changes are working.

LTV — Customer Lifetime Value

The total revenue you can expect from a member over their whole relationship with you. A simple estimate:

LTV ≈ ARPU ÷ churn rate.

If members pay $30/month and you churn 5% monthly, average lifetime ≈ 20 months, so LTV ≈ $600. Lower your churn and LTV rises — fast.

Revenue at risk

The MRR tied to subscriptions currently in trouble — failed renewals, cards about to expire, pending cancellations. This is the number that tells you where to act this week.

Retention rate

The flip side of churn: the percentage of members you keep. 95% monthly retention = 5% churn. Teams often track it this way because it's a more motivating number to grow.

Net revenue retention (NRR)

Whether revenue from your existing members grows or shrinks over time, including upgrades, downgrades and churn. Above 100% means your current base is expanding on its own — a strong signal.

Putting it to work

You don't need all of these on day one. Start with MRR, churn, and revenue at risk — they tell you if you're growing, how fast you're leaking, and where to act now.

Wix doesn't show these for Pricing Plans out of the box, so Retainly calculates them automatically from your subscriptions and puts them on one dashboard — then helps you act on them with failed-payment recovery, a pause option, and win-back messages. Free to start on the Wix App Market.

Measure a few things well, and the right actions become obvious.