How many customers from each cohort are still with us at month N?
№ 006 · Logo retention curve
Definition
MetricCustomer (logo) retention by cohort at month N
Unit% of cohort customers still active
Each line plots one cohort's surviving logo count divided by month-zero logos. Newer cohorts above older means logo retention improving. Build by counting active logos per cohort monthly. Watch the first 3 months since most churn happens there. Example: Jan cohort 100% M0, 85% M3, 78% M6.
Benchmarks
| Bottom 30% | Median | Top 30% |
|---|---|---|
| under 78% at month 12; curve keeps sloping down without a plateau | ~85% at month 12 | 88-90%+ at month 12; curve flattens after month 12-18 |
Private B2B SaaS, annual logo retention, blended ACV, 2022-2026 data; logo retention weights every customer equally regardless of size · Logo retention is most informative below ~$10k ACV; above that, GRR is the better lens (OpenView guidance). Monthly-billed low-price products should benchmark monthly churn instead: Recurly network shows 2.9-4.3% total monthly churn depending on price tier, which compounds to far below 85% annual logo retention; the 85% annual figure reflects B2B books with annual contracts.
Category split omitted: Logo-level splits are each published by a single source (Recurly by price tier, RevOps Squared by ARR band); no two independent Tier 1-2 sources cover the same split.
When it looks bad
The curve never flattens: instead of the healthy elbow where survivors stabilize around month 12-18, the line keeps bleeding 1-2% a month indefinitely, meaning even long-tenured customers leave at will.
Cohort at 80% month 6, 68% month 12, 55% month 18, 44% month 24. No plateau means no durable base; LTV models assuming a floor are overstated.
What to do about it
- Find the elbow month and work backwards: if 70% of lifetime churn happens before month 6, the problem is onboarding and first-value, not product depth; instrument a single activation milestone and gate CS effort on reaching it within 30 days.
- Run win-back inside 30 days of churn, not quarterly: ChartMogul data shows 45% of customers who ever return do so within 30 days and 66% within 90, so an automated day-7 and day-21 win-back sequence beats a quarterly campaign.
- For monthly low-price plans, push annual billing at the month 2-4 upgrade window (ChartMogul); each conversion removes 11 cancellation opportunities per year and typically lifts 12-month logo survival by several points.
- Strip involuntary churn out of the curve before drawing product conclusions: at low price points involuntary churn is up to 1.3 points of monthly churn (Recurly), and dunning fixes are faster than roadmap fixes.
Sources
- Drivetrain (reporting RevOps Squared / Benchmarkit data) Median logo retention 85%; 89% for $1-5M ARR companies vs 83% for $50-100M ARR; OpenView found logo retention not strongly correlated with business size drivetrain.ai ↗
- ChartMogul Best-in-class customer retention ~85-87% at any stage; only 11-19% of SaaS businesses exceed 85%; companies above 85% grow 1.5-3x faster chartmogul.com ↗
- Recurly Research Monthly total churn 4.29% at $10-25/mo ARPC falling to 2.87% at $100-250/mo; involuntary churn drops 87% from lowest to highest price tier recurly.com ↗
- ChartMogul Retention became the core growth lever as new business slowed; mature companies shifted growth strategy toward existing customers chartmogul.com ↗
- Benchmarkit Customer logo retention tracked annually alongside GRR and NRR, filterable by ACV and segment benchmarkit.ai ↗
- ChartMogul 45% of returning customers come back within 30 days of churning and 66% within 90 days, so win-back is a race against time chartmogul.com ↗