The math of retention and expansion

There is no specific mathematical formula that can prove how retention and expansion work other than this rather glib and uncomplicated one. But there’s a beauty in its simplicity because it gets to the very essence of what it means to be in CS—to retain customers and expand the value they receive over time. Stated even more bluntly, if a customer decides to stay with a vendor and renew their subscription, it means they aren’t leaving. That’s it. So, you can mathematically represent it this way. If retention is A and churn is B, here’s the math:

A > B

If it’s not obvious by now, I’ll say it clearly. I’m a believer that in order to convey information to others, it very often makes sense to use the simplest of expressions, even if they provoke eye rolls. The virtue of simplicity is it moves even the most cynical of people toward alignment with a foundational concept.

I first started...