Customer retention rate

Customer retention rate is the share of a fixed starting customer population that remains retained under a chosen criterion in a later period. GA4 illustrates the fixed-cohort principle: its cohort retention fraction divides active cohort users by the original cohort, not by a newly assembled population.[1] Website activity is not, however, proof that a paying customer has been retained.

A store might define retention as another purchase within a follow-up period appropriate to the category. Do not include newly acquired customers as retained members of the old group. Otherwise growth in the overall customer base can conceal losses among existing customers. Retention can be placed directly alongside churn only when the starting population, time boundary and opposing status rules are the same.