Skool platform retention benchmarks shared by Hormozi (80% monthly average, best groups 90%+, under 70% is a problem), how churn falls after day 90 and month 6, the LTV math (20%→10% churn doubles LTV; 80% vs 50% annual retention = 2.5x value) and the joins-vs-cancels check.

Churn benchmarks, cohort churn and how retention multiplies LTV

TL;DR

Count joins vs cancels every month and label the business growing, flat or declining. MRR grows only when joins exceed cancels.
Skool benchmarks (online and consumer-service memberships): average 80% monthly retention (20% churn). Best groups have <10% churn. Below 70% retention, fix retention before anything else.
Churn drops with tenure: 20%+ a month in months 1–3, about 10% after day 90, about 2% after month 6. Ask “how do I get people past day 90 and month 6?” instead of “how do I lower average churn?”
Small churn changes are huge for LTV: going from 20% to 10% monthly churn doubles lifetime.
B2B: aim for ≥80% annual logo retention (of the original cohort). LTV ≈ annual revenue ÷ annual churn. 50% retention → 2x annual value, 80% → about 5x.

Details

Diagnose first. Selling 5 and losing 4 grows MRR, 5 and 5 is flat, and fewer joins than cancels is decline. Track both numbers monthly.¹²

Benchmarks. Alex Hormozi co-owns Skool and shares platform averages that he says fit consumer, remote and online services (weight loss, coaching, communities) better than insurance- or alarm-style contracts. Average monthly retention is 80%. The best groups keep 90%+. Under 70%, retention is the highest-ROI lever you have.³ Halving churn from 20% to 10% isn’t a 10–12% gain. Customers stay twice as long.³

Cohort shape. Churn is highest in months 1–3, at 20% or more. It roughly halves to about 10% for people who make it past day 90, and drops to about 2% after month six, a fivefold LTV jump.⁴⁵ So if your membership is under 90 days old (or under six months), your reported churn is inflated because no one has reached the low-churn months yet. Don’t rebuild the business just because month-one churn is high.⁵⁶ Each milestone needs a different job:⁶

Month 1: activation, onboarding, expectation setting, honest front-end promises, daily presence.
Day 90: a real outcome or change in behaviour.
Month 6: connection with other members.

Annual retention and LTV (B2B). Measure the original cohort. If 100 customers on 1 January become 160 a year later, what matters is how many of the first 100 are still there.⁷ At $100 a year, 50% annual retention gives about $200 LTV and 80% gives about $500.⁸ CAC is roughly a commodity within an industry, since similar businesses pay similar prices for customers. So the competitor whose customers are worth 2.5x more can outspend you on acquisition, and that’s where the arbitrage is.⁹ Quoting John Paul DeJoria, Hormozi says you want to be in the reselling business, which comes down mainly to product and then brand.¹⁰

Disagreements / caveats

Skool numbers come from creator communities and online programmes. App subscriptions (trial-to-paid, annual renewal) and B2B SaaS have different curves; for apps see Subscription funnel benchmarks (trial start, trial-to-paid, install-to-paid, LTV per install).
Annual LTV = revenue ÷ churn is a back-of-napkin estimate. It ignores the cohort shape described above.

Churn benchmarks, cohort churn and how retention multiplies LTV

Churn benchmarks, cohort churn and how retention multiplies LTV

TL;DR

Details

Disagreements / caveats

See also

Footnotes