Subscription Metrics Ecommerce Brands Should Actually Track

If you run a subscription ecommerce brand, stop using attributed email revenue as the main retention scorecard.

The metrics we care about most are:

1. 1Subscription Started
2. 2Subscription Cancelled
3. 3Net Subscription Growth
4. 4Churn Rate
5. 5Cohort Retention

Then we go deeper into renewal retention, time or order number to cancellation, skip, delay, pause, reactivation, failed-payment churn and expansion.

Why? Because subscription retention is not about how much revenue your ESP can claim. It is about how many subscribers you create, how many you lose and how long they stay.

By Emiel Dingemans, Founder of Magicianly

The Subscription Attribution Problem

Imagine:

1. 1A customer already has a subscription.
2. 2You send an email.
3. 3They open it.
4. 4Their scheduled rebill happens tomorrow.
5. 5Your email platform attributes the order to email.

Did the email generate that order? Not necessarily. The subscription was already scheduled. This is why recurring rebill revenue can inflate email-attributed performance.

Our rule: rebill revenue is not automatically email-driven revenue. The wider strategy sits in ecommerce subscription marketing.

1. Subscription Started

This tells you how many new subscriptions were created. Track it by:

• week
• month
• product
• acquisition source
• offer
• campaign where relevant

A growing subscriber base needs new starts. But starts alone do not tell you whether the subscription model is healthy. If you create 1,000 subscriptions and lose 1,100, you did not grow.

2. Subscription Cancelled

Track the number of subscriptions being cancelled. Then break cancellations down by:

• product
• cohort
• renewal number
• cancellation reason
• active vs passive churn
• acquisition source where possible

A blended cancellation number can hide where the real problem sits.

3. Net Subscription Growth

For a simple weekly operational snapshot we like new subscriptions started minus subscriptions cancelled. This immediately tells the team whether the subscription base expanded or contracted.

If useful, track reactivations separately so you understand where growth came from.

Some subscription platforms calculate broader "net gain/loss" metrics according to their own definitions. Do not combine formulas from different tools without documenting them.

Starts only matter relative to losses.

The Golden Rule

If your email program creates more cancellations than new subscriptions, it is destroying subscription value even if attributed revenue looks impressive.

That is why net growth belongs close to the top of the dashboard.

4. Churn Rate

Churn rate tells you how quickly the active subscription base is being lost. But definitions can vary.

Recharge currently defines subscription churn rate based on subscriptions churned relative to average daily active subscriptions during the reporting period, per its subscription dashboards documentation. Other platforms may calculate it differently.

Therefore: document the formula you use and keep it consistent. Do not compare two churn rates unless they were calculated the same way.

5. Active vs Passive Churn

This split is extremely useful.

Active Churn

The customer intentionally cancelled. Investigate:

• product
• price
• value
• cadence
• product accumulation
• experience
• cancellation reason

Passive Churn

The subscription was lost because payment recovery failed or a similar non-deliberate issue occurred. Investigate:

• payment failures
• retries
• card updates
• dunning
• payment messaging

Do not solve a payment problem with better copywriting. The prevention side is covered in subscription churn.

6. Cohort Retention

This is one of the most useful subscription metrics. Group subscribers according to when they started. Then ask:

• how many remain after renewal #1?
• after #2?
• after #3?
• after six months?
• after twelve months?

This tells you whether newer cohorts are becoming healthier or worse. A blended active-subscriber count cannot show that clearly. Recharge currently provides retention reporting by both month and order number.

7. Retention by Order Number

For physical subscription ecommerce, order number is often more useful than calendar month. Why? Different customers can have:

• 14-day cadence
• monthly cadence
• six-week cadence
• quarterly cadence

Comparing "month three" can therefore mean different lifecycle stages. Order number answers how many subscribers make it from order 1 to order 2? Then 2 to 3, and so on. That identifies the real retention cliff.

8. Cancellations Before First Recurring Order

This is particularly valuable. The customer signed up, but cancelled before completing even one recurring renewal. That tells you something is wrong very early. Potential causes:

• poor acquisition offer
• buyer's remorse
• weak onboarding
• wrong cadence
• product expectation mismatch
• upcoming-order reminder
• first experience

Recharge includes this as a dedicated metric in its current subscription dashboards.

9. Time to Cancellation

How long do subscribers survive before leaving? Track:

• median time
• average time
• order number
• product differences

Then focus retention work on the window where risk actually increases. Do not fire a generic 90-day churn-prevention sequence if most customers disappear at day 35.

10. Cancellation Reason

A churn rate tells you what happened. Cancellation reason can help explain why.

Common categories may include:

• too much product
• too expensive
• no longer need it
• did not see results
• bad product experience
• delivery issue
• wants different frequency

Do not merely collect these reasons. Use them. "Too much product" should trigger a different retention solution from "too expensive."

11. Skip Rate

A skip is not always bad. The short-term order is lost, but the subscription remains alive. A rising skip rate can also reveal:

• over-delivery
• poor cadence
• inventory buildup
• customers consuming slower than expected

Recharge explicitly notes that frequent skips can signal delivery-cadence mismatch or excess product in its subscriber dashboards documentation.

12. Pause and Delay Behavior

Customers who pause or delay are giving you information. They may be saying:

I still want this, just not at this frequency.

That is much better than an unexplained cancellation. Track these behaviors as retention signals. If pause or delay increases dramatically, investigate the offer and cadence.

13. Reactivation

How many churned subscribers become active again? This tells you whether:

• winback works
• cancellation offers work
• the product remains desirable
• customer needs are cyclical

Recharge includes reactivation metrics and considers them an indicator of retention and remarketing success.

14. Churned MRR

Subscription revenue lost through churn can add financial context. But do not let MRR replace subscriber behavior. Two brands can lose the same amount of MRR:

• one from many small subscribers
• one from a few very valuable subscribers

Look at revenue and customer count together.

15. Average Orders Per Subscription

This is an intuitive LTV-supporting metric. How many orders does the average subscription survive? If this moves, the economics of acquisition change. A small improvement can compound across a large subscriber base.

16. Average Active Days

How long does the subscription remain active? Useful alongside order count because cadence can differ.

17. Expansion

Retention keeps revenue. Expansion grows the customer. Track whether established subscribers:

• add complementary products
• upgrade
• move to larger plans
• move to longer commitments
• add one-time products

But be careful. Do not expand customers by creating the same product-overload problem that causes churn.

18. Non-Recurring Revenue

For subscription brands using an ESP such as Klaviyo, build a view of revenue that excludes automatic rebills when possible. The exact implementation depends on:

• Shopify
• Recharge
• Loop
• Skio
• event structure
• integration properties

Do not blindly copy a filter from another account. Verify the underlying events. The goal is to separate revenue email may have influenced from revenue that was already scheduled.

Our Weekly Subscription Scorecard

A simple weekly view:

New subscriptions

How many started?

Cancellations

How many were lost?

Net growth

Did the base expand?

Campaign impact

Did any marketing activity create unusual starts or cancellations?

Churn signals

Are skip, pause and cancel patterns changing?

That is enough to catch many problems early.

Our Monthly Subscription Review

Once per month, go deeper. Review:

• churn trend
• active vs passive churn
• cohorts
• retention by order number
• cancellation reasons
• product differences
• skip and delay behavior
• reactivations
• billing reminder
• subscriber campaign impact
• expansion

This turns subscription reporting into strategy.

The Dashboard We Would Avoid

A dashboard containing:

• open rate
• click rate
• Klaviyo attributed revenue
• campaign revenue

and nothing else. Those numbers can help diagnose messaging. They do not tell you whether the subscription business is becoming healthier, which is the same argument we make about ecommerce retention metrics generally.

The Subscription Metrics Hierarchy

At the top: Net Subscription Growth. Supported by:

• starts
• cancellations
• churn
• cohort retention

Then diagnose using:

• renewal retention
• cancellation reasons
• skip
• pause
• delay
• reactivation
• churn type
• product
• expansion

Email metrics sit underneath those business outcomes. Not above them.

Our Verdict

Subscription reporting should answer three simple questions:

1. 1Are we creating enough new subscribers?
2. 2Are we keeping them long enough?
3. 3Why are we losing the ones who leave?

If your dashboard cannot answer those, you do not yet have a subscription-retention dashboard.