Customer retention
Retention is no longer just a strategy — it’s the cornerstone of subscription growth. Gone are the days of rapid acquisition at all costs, as rates slow and prices continually increase to attract new customers. For long-term success, businesses need the tools and insights to keep their retention goals on track.
Over 2,000+ merchants like Alaska Airlines, Twitch, and Nuuly trust Recurly to keep their subscribers coming back year over year. Here’s how we can help you:
In-depth analytics to track churn and retention trends
Flexible plan management personalized to your subscribers’ needs
Pause options that keep customers connected without saying goodbye for good
One-click subscription changes for users to upgrade, change, pause, and adjust plans
And much, much more
What is customer retention?
Customer retention refers to the ability to turn first-time customers into loyal, repeat subscribers who continue to use your services over time. Retention allows businesses to maximize the lifetime value of their subscribers.
Most importantly, retention provides the bedrock for your subscription growth long term. Higher retention rates provide the freedom to focus on experimentation, implement product improvements, and plan strategically.
Customer retention revolves around identifying subscriber’s needs, providing consistent value, and building lasting loyalty among your subscribers. It’s not just about reducing churn, but also creating relationships that will drive your business toward greater success and growth. A strong retention strategy both boosts your bottom line and transforms loyal subscribers into passionate brand advocates.
Customer retention methods span company-wide across products, plans, payments, loyalty programs, and more. Subscription platforms face many challenges in managing retention for the long term.
Retention resources you need to know
How Recurly helps you retain more subscribers
Recurly is a subscription management platform designed to help businesses grow, scale, and adapt to the evolving subscription landscape. We offer a suite of tools to minimize churn, enable scalability, and engage the subscriber at every point in their lifecycle.
- Save time with streamlined, low-code solutions
- Retain subscribers with our smart dunning campaigns tailored to your subscriber plans
- Design personalized cancellation experiences that reduce churn
- Use targeted save offers to re-engage and retain subscribers
- Plan your next phase of growth with Recurly Compass Playbooks
- Optimize pricing strategies to match subscriber preferences
- Offer flexible payments with local currencies and preferred methods
- Enable one-click tools for subscribers to easily manage their plans
Build loyalty and maximize revenue with Recurly
Recurly’s platform helps companies maintain long-term relationships with their customers, while optimizing revenue streams in the process.
Subscriber engagement: Boost retention by delivering personalized, timely messages and product offering with Recurly Engage. From onboarding tips to upsell offers and cancellation saves, Engage increases customer satisfaction and reduces churn by keeping subscribers actively engaged.
Plan flexibility: Recurly offers various pricing models, from fixed to quantity-based. Merchants have the flexibility to combine models, selecting the ones that best suit their platform. Meanwhile, subscribers can conveniently add both subscriptions and one-off purchases into multiple subscriptions to a single cart.
Pausing subscriptions: Recurly allows companies to seamlessly integrate pause features that match their criteria. With one click-functionality, you can set the pause schedule in seconds.
Actionable insights: Get a 360 view of your subscriber lifecycle, including plan performance, customer trends, campaign results, and revenue per user. Make smarter, more informed decisions with ease.
Tailored payments: Recurly integrates with multiple payment gateways globally and supports various payment methods, such as credit cards, digital wallets, and many more. This flexibility lets subscribers pay their way, reducing barriers and boosting retention.
67+
million subscribers on the Recurly platform
16X
average ROI for Recurly merchants
72%
of at-risk subscribers saved
FAQs about customer retention in subscriptions
What is customer retention management?
Customer retention management is the process of keeping existing customers engaged and satisfied with your product or service to build long-term loyalty and reduce churn. This is done in various ways, such as through exclusive products, loyalty programs, payment flexibility, plan options, and more.
How do you calculate customer retention rate?
Customer retention rate is best calculated using the Customer retention rate (CRR) formula:
The percentage of customers a company retains over a given period.
- Formula: CRR = ((E−N)/S) × 100
Where:
- E = Number of customers at the end of the period
- N = Number of new customers acquired
- S = Number of customers at the start of the period
What are some examples of customer retention strategies?
Some high-level customer retention strategies include:
- Providing a better onboarding experience to maximize customer engagement
- Delivering personalization at multiple touchpoints
- Building strong communities to keep customers engaged and drive product innovation
- Provide proactive customer support to help your users get their needs met
Why is customer retention important for subscription-based businesses?
Customer retention is the foundation of any successful subscription-based business. It provides valuable insights into why subscribers remain loyal, why they cancel, and how to address potential issues with the service. Poor customer retention can spell failure for a subscription company, making it crucial to understand and optimize products for user enjoyment or productivity.
How does a subscription management platform help improve retention?
A subscription management platform like Recurly gives businesses the tools needed to retain subscribers and drive long-term growth. With Recurly, you can:
- Grow and scale subscriptions effortlessly with advanced management tools
- Accelerate subscriber retention with features designed to keep customers engaged year after year
Join thousands of businesses leveraging Recurly to optimize their subscription strategy. Start growing today.
2025 State of Subscriptions: The future of retention and revenue growth
Our latest data makes it easy to see the shift to a retention-first mindset for subscription businesses.
- Acquisition rates dropped from 4.1% to 2.8% in 2024
- 20% of acquisitions are returning subscribers
- 68% YOY increase of subscription pause usage across all industries in 2024
Dive into the subscription industry from every perspective, exploring critical topics like payments, fraud prevention, customer retention, trial performance, and loyalty programs. Gain insights into the biggest challenges facing DTC subscription businesses, and discover how your company measures up against industry peers.
Check out even more ways to retain customers
The shift to retention in subscription businesses
Product leaders at Amazon, Tesco, DAZN, The Economist, and more brands share how to build fierce subscription loyalty that ensures growth.
Why subscription pauses are a powerful retention tactic
Learn how subscription pauses reduce churn, foster loyalty, and keep customers engaged. Discover best practices and tips to make the most out of canceling alternatives.
Building trust: The key to keeping subscribers around
Trust between subscriber and merchant is the key to retention, but how do you build that relationship? We’ve got you covered.