What Is Logo Churn? Meaning, Formula and Logo vs. Revenue Churn

Logo churn is the share of customer accounts you lose in a period, regardless of how much each one paid. If you start the quarter with 200 customers and 10 of them cancel or do not renew, your logo churn for the quarter is 5%. It is called "logo" churn because every customer is one company, one logo.

Logo churn answers "how many customers did we lose?". Revenue churn answers "how much money did we lose?". The two can tell very different stories, which is why you should always look at both.

How to calculate logo churn

Logo churn rate = accounts lost during the period ÷ accounts at the start of the period × 100

Three rules keep the number honest:

1. Count accounts, not users. A company with 40 users is one logo.
2. Use the count at the start of the period. Customers who signed up during the period do not belong in the denominator.
3. Decide what counts as lost. A cancellation, a non-renewal at the end of the contract, or both. Write the definition down and keep it.

The SaaS churn calculator works out logo and revenue churn for you.

Logo churn vs. revenue churn: a worked example

Imagine two quarters at the same company, each starting with 200 customers and $500,000 in annual recurring revenue (ARR):

Quarter A looks bad on logos and fine on revenue: many small customers leaving, often a sign of an onboarding or fit problem. Quarter B looks fine on logos and bad on revenue: one big loss that hits the business hard. Each number alone would have sent the team in the wrong direction.

Why logo churn matters

• It shows product and fit problems early. Many small customers leaving usually means they did not get value, even if revenue churn still looks acceptable.
• It protects your future revenue. Every lost logo is also lost expansion, lost referrals and a lost reference.
• It shows where customers fall off. Split logo churn by plan, segment and tenure, and you see whether the problem is the first 90 days or later in the lifecycle.

Where you see logo churn depends a lot on your mix. In our study of 44,000 SaaS users, monthly plans churned 4.7 times faster than annual plans, and single-user accounts 14 to 33 times faster than accounts with a team. A rising share of monthly or single-user customers will push logo churn up on its own.

How to reduce logo churn

1. Get every new customer to the core action. In our data, customers who never performed the product's core action churned 3 to 6 times more than those who did.
2. Get a second person into the account. The biggest drop in churn came between one user and two or three.
3. Spot risk before the renewal. Churn prediction flags accounts whose behavior looks like the customers who left, usually 30 or more days ahead.
4. Give every flag an owner. A playbook turns a flagged account into tasks with an owner and a due date, so nobody has to remember to follow up.
5. Track logo and revenue churn by segment, so you know which fix worked.

FAQ

Why is it called logo churn?

Each customer company is represented by its logo, for example on a customer slide, so "losing logos" became shorthand for losing customers.

Is logo churn the same as customer churn?

Yes. Logo churn and customer churn both count lost accounts. Revenue churn is the one that counts lost money.

Which matters more, logo churn or revenue churn?

You need both. Revenue churn drives forecasts and board reporting; logo churn shows product, onboarding and fit problems earlier, especially among smaller customers.

Does logo churn include downgrades?

No. A downgraded customer is still a customer. Downgrades show up in revenue churn.

Related: What is churn rate · Churn prediction in SaaS · SaaS churn calculator