Repeat rate and churn

Repeat rate measures whether a shop has customers or only buyers. It is the metric that separates a durable business from a well-run advertising campaign.

Choose a window

A repeat rate without a period attached is meaningless. Twelve months is the usual window for consumer shops; for products bought once every few years, the measure has to be replaced with something else entirely.

Repeat rate against churn

Repeat rate looks at the whole base. Churn looks at a defined group over time and asks how many stopped. For subscription models churn is the sharper measure; for ordinary shops the cohort view is more informative.

What it changes

A high repeat rate justifies spending more on the first order, tolerates a thinner first-order margin and raises what the business is worth to a buyer, because part of next year's revenue is already in the base.