Average Subscription and Churn Time

Upon opening the Subscription Cortex dashboard, you are greeted by two metrics: Average Churn Time and Average Subscription Time. What do these metrics mean for the health of your business? This article will break down the factors that go into these stats, and how to interpret this data accurately.

Average churn time

Average Churn Time is the average subscription length for churned customers, who have canceled their subscriptions. A low time here means that customers can decide quickly whether or not they want to subscribe to your service over a longer period of time. A longer time means customers spend more time evaluating their subscription to your brand before choosing to cancel. A slow rise in this number over time is great, as it means you're increasing the average customer lifetime. A rapid rise in this number can mean you are losing long-time subscribers.

Average Subscription Time

Average Subscription time is the average subscription length for active customers, who are still receiving products or services through their subscription. Generally speaking, you want this number to be as large as possible, as it means your subscribers see a lot of value in your brand and hold on to their subscriptions for a long time. If this number drops it can be a good or bad thing, so it's important to understand how it can be affected. If long-time subscribers cancel, the average subscription time will shrink, and the average churn time will grow. If your brand acquires lots of new subscribers, average subscription time will shrink, but average churn time will be unaffected, as the new subscribers haven't churned yet.