Retention Reports - Overview

The Retention reports in Zoho Billing allows you to gain insights into how well your business has been retaining existing customers. These reports are particularly helpful in identifying how well your business retains customers after they sign up to your subscriptions, and possible causes of renewal failures, allowing you to dive deep into their causes and improving retention.

Zoho Billing supports the following reports:

Subscription Retention Cohort

The Subscription Retention Cohort report allows you to gain insights into how your subscriptions from each activation month is performing at the end of the month, and its subsequent months till the current month. You can view this report for selected products, or all products.

You can select the cohort period as:

6 Months
12 Months
18 Months
24 Months

You can also select the Cohort Type as:

Retention Rate - The percentage of all the subscriptions that were retained at the end of each month, compared to the total number of subscriptions that were created at the beginning of the activation month.
Insight: For example, if 100 subscriptions were created in the cohort month, and after 2 months, 10 were cancelled, the report will display 100% for the first 2 months, and 90% post that.
Retention Count - The total number of subscriptions that were retained at the end of each month from the activation month.
Insight: For example, if 100 subscriptions were created in the cohort month, and after 2 months, 10 were cancelled, the report will display 100 for the first 2 months, and 90 post that.

Cohort Chart

The Cohort chart shows the following data:

Cohort - The activation month, when subscriptions were activated.
Cohort Value - The number of subscriptions that were activated in the respective activation month.
Months Since Activation - The number/percentage of subscriptions from the activation month that were active in each of the subsequent months till the current month.
Insight: The 0th month since activation refers to the number/percentage of subscriptions that were retained at the end of the activation.

How is this report helpful for your business?

The Subscription Retention Cohort report in Zoho Billing lets you understand how your business has performed in retaining customers for subscriptions for subsequent months from the activation month. This is particularly helpful to understand how well your business can retain customers across months, especially after acquiring them through seasonal sales or marketing campaigns.

Scenario: Charles Stone, the head of the marketing team at Zylker, had conducted a marketing campaign with huge discounts in March and acquired multiple customers in the same month. At the end of July, he wants to view how many customers he gained through the marketing campaign still had their subscriptions activated through the subsequent months. He can use the Subscription Retention Cohort report in Zoho Billing to look into this information, and take data-backed decisions to retain more customers.

Revenue Retention Cohort

The Revenue Retention Cohort report in Zoho Billing provides clear insights into the MRR retained from subscriptions each month, starting from the activation month.

Insight: The MRR for subsequent months can increase due to subscription upgrades, while they can decrease due to downgrades and cancellations.

You can select the cohort period as:

6 Months
12 Months
18 Months
24 Months

You can also select the Cohort Type as:

MRR Relative Percentage - The percentage of the MRR from retained subscription at the end of each month, compared to the activation month of the subscriptions, or the previous month.
Insight: For example, the MRR amount in the Cohort month is $1000, at the end of three months it becomes $900, and becomes $810 after 2 months. If the report is filtered by MRR Relative to Activation Month, the report will display as 0% till the first 2 months, -10% from the 3rd month, and -19% from the end of the 5th month. If the report is filtered by MRR Relative To Previous Month, the report will display as 0% till the first 2 months, -10% for the 3rd month, 0% for the fourth month, and -10% for the 5th month.
MRR Amount - The total MRR from retained subscriptions at the end of each month from the activation month.
Insight: For example, the MRR amount in the Cohort month is $1000, at the end of three months it becomes $900, and becomes $810 after 2 months. The report will display as $1000 for the first 2 months, $900 for the 3rd and 4th month, and $810 from the 5th month.

Cohort Chart

The Cohort chart shows the following data:

Cohort - The activation month, when subscriptions were activated.
Cohort Value - The total Net MRR from the subscriptions that were activated in the respective activation month.
Months Since Activation - The amount/percentage of MRR from retained subscriptions in each of the subsequent months after the activation month till the current month.

Insight: The 0th month since activation refers to the total amount/percentage of MRR from subscriptions that were retained at the end of the activation month.

How is this report helpful for your business?

The Revenue Retention Cohort report in Zoho Billing lets you understand how your business has performed in retaining MRR from customer subscriptions in subsequent months from the activation month. This is particularly helpful to understand how well your business can retain MRR, after accounting for upgrades, downgrades, and churn, from subscriptions across months, especially after acquiring customers through seasonal sales or marketing campaigns.

Scenario: Aaron Brown, the head of the finance team at Zylker, wants to view how the MRR from subscriptions created in March have been performing for the subsequent months till July. He can use the Revenue Retention Cohort report in Zoho Billing to find out the required information. After finding out whether the MRR from March have increased, decreased or stayed the same in the subsequent months, he can reach out to other teams to discuss and take better decisions to improve revenue retention.

Revenue Retention Rate

The Revenue Retention Rate reports in Zoho Billing show you how much of your recurring revenue from existing customers has been retained each month. Zoho Billing supports two types of revenue retention reports:

Net Revenue Retention Rate — Measures revenue retained after accounting for upgrades, downgrades, and cancellations.
Gross Revenue Retention Rate — Measures revenue retained after accounting for downgrades and cancellations only, without factoring in upgrades.

Navigating to Revenue Retention Rate Reports

To view the Revenue Retention Rate reports:

Log in to your Zoho Billing organization.
Click Reports on the left sidebar.
Scroll to Retention under Report Category.
Select Revenue Retention Rate from the list.
In the report page, select Net Revenue Retention Rate or Gross Revenue Retention Rate from the Retention Type dropdown.

Net Revenue Retention Rate

The Net Revenue Retention Rate report in Zoho Billing shows you how much of your recurring revenue from existing customers has been retained each month. You can view this report for selected products or all products, and customize it further to view it for selected plans or all plans of the selected products.

Formula

Net Revenue Retention Rate (%) = (Starting MRR + Expansion MRR − Contraction MRR − Churn MRR) ÷ Starting MRR × 100

Metric	Description
Starting MRR	The total recurring revenue at the beginning of the month.
Expansion MRR	The increase in recurring revenue from existing customers who upgraded their plan or increased their plan quantity during the month.
Contraction MRR	The decrease in recurring revenue from existing customers who downgraded their plan or reduced their plan quantity during the month.
Churn MRR	The recurring revenue lost from subscriptions that were canceled, or expired during the month.

Performance Overview

Based on the selected date range, you can view the following details:

Current Retention Rate — The Net Revenue Retention Rate for the latest period in the selected date range.

Insight: For example, if the date range is set to Last 12 Months, this value reflects the Net Revenue Retention Rate calculated for the most recent month within that period.

Chart View

The chart gives a visual representation of the Net Revenue Retention Rate for each month in the selected date range. You can choose to display the chart as a Line chart or Bar chart.

Breakdown View

The breakdown view displays the Net Revenue Retention Rate for each month in the selected date range, along with the components used to calculate it.

Metric	Description
Previous MRR	The recurring revenue at the beginning of the month.
Expansion MRR	The increase in recurring revenue from upgrades or increases in plan quantity during the month.
Contraction MRR	The decrease in recurring revenue from downgrades or reductions in plan quantity during the month.
Churn MRR	The recurring revenue lost from subscriptions that were canceled, or expired during the month.
Net Revenue Retention Rate (%)	The percentage of recurring revenue retained after accounting for expansions, contractions, and churn.

How is this report helpful for your business?

The Net Revenue Retention Rate report helps you understand how well your business is retaining and growing recurring revenue from existing customers. Since this rate accounts for both revenue lost through downgrades and cancellations and revenue gained through upgrades, it gives you a complete picture of how your existing customer base is performing. This is particularly useful for identifying periods where contraction or churn is offsetting expansion, and taking action before it impacts your overall MRR.

Scenario: Zylker recently ran a customer success program to help customers get more value from their subscriptions. Charles, the Revenue Head, wants to see if it worked. He checks the Net Revenue Retention Rate report in Zoho Billing and compares the last three months. He sees the rate increase from 96% in October to 104% in December. Expansion revenue is also growing each month. This shows that customers are upgrading more than they are downgrading or canceling. Based on this, Charles decides to continue and expand the program next quarter.

Gross Revenue Retention Rate

The Gross Revenue Retention Rate report in Zoho Billing shows you how much of your recurring revenue from existing customers has been retained each month, without factoring in revenue from upgrades. You can view this report for selected products or all products, and customize it further to view it for selected plans or all plans of the selected products.

Insight: Because Gross Revenue Retention Rate excludes expansion revenue, it gives you a clearer view of how much revenue you are losing purely due to downgrades and cancellations, without upgrades masking the picture.

Formula

Gross Revenue Retention Rate (%) = (Starting MRR − Contraction MRR − Churn MRR) ÷ Starting MRR × 100

Metric	Description
Starting MRR	The total recurring revenue at the beginning of the month.
Contraction MRR	The decrease in recurring revenue from existing customers who downgraded their plan or reduced their plan quantity during the month.
Churn MRR	The recurring revenue lost from subscriptions that were canceled, paused, or expired during the month.

Performance Overview

Based on the selected date range, you can view the following details:

Current Retention Rate — The Gross Revenue Retention Rate for the latest period in the selected date range.

Insight: For example, if the date range is set to This Month, this value reflects the Gross Revenue Retention Rate calculated based on the most recent day or the final date in the selected period.

Chart View

The chart gives a visual representation of the Gross Revenue Retention Rate for each month in the selected date range. You can choose to display the chart as a Line chart or Bar chart.

Breakdown View

The breakdown view displays the Gross Revenue Retention Rate for each month in the selected date range, along with the components used to calculate it.

Metric	Description
Previous MRR	The recurring revenue at the beginning of the month.
Contraction MRR	The decrease in recurring revenue from downgrades or reductions in plan quantity during the month.
Churn MRR	The recurring revenue lost from subscriptions that were canceled, paused, or expired during the month.
Gross Revenue Retention Rate (%)	The percentage of recurring revenue retained after accounting for contractions and churn, excluding any expansion revenue.

How is this report helpful for your business?

The Gross Revenue Retention Rate report helps you understand how much recurring revenue your business is losing purely due to downgrades and cancellations, without expansion revenue masking the picture. This is particularly useful when your Net Revenue Retention Rate looks healthy but you want to verify whether that is being driven by genuine retention or by upsell activity offsetting underlying losses.

Scenario: Zylker’s Net Revenue Retention Rate has been above 100% for the past two months. However, Charles wants to make sure strong upsells aren’t hiding other issues. He checks the Gross Revenue Retention Rate report in Zoho Billing. The report shows the rate dropping from 91% in October to 83% in December, even though the Net Rate looks healthy. In the Breakdown View, he notices that Churn MRR is increasing, especially for the Starter plan. This helps him analyse the customer retention more accurately and identify churn risks early, instead of relying only on overall revenue growth.

Renewal Summary

The Renewal Summary report in Zoho Billing gives you an insight of all the subscriptions that have been renewed or will be renewed. This report can be viewed for selected products or all products. You can also customize it further to view the report for selected plans or all plans of the selected products. You can also filter this report to view the renewals for specific customer, and choose to view only renewed subscriptions or upcoming renewals.

Insight: You can also click Plan Count to view a summarized view of subscription renewals categorized by plans, renewal count and total amount of each plan.

How is this report helpful for your business?

The Renewal Summary report in Zoho Billing helps you to identify the number of plans that were renewed in the selected period, allowing you to view the subscriptions particularly, whose invoices are overdue and unpaid, which can be followed up with the customers. You can also view the total number of upcoming renewals to ensure a smooth renewal experience for your customers.

Scenario: Aaron Brown, who works at the customer success team at Zylker, wants to view the number of subscriptions that were renewed in the last week and the number of subscriptions that will be renewed in the upcoming week. He can view the Renewal Summary report in Zoho Billing to view the required details. Based on the data, he can take further actions on subscriptions that are overdue or unpaid and follow up with the customers.

Renewal Failures

The Renewal Failures report in Zoho Billing allows you to view the list of all subscriptions which could not be renewed due to various reasons.

How is this report helpful for your business?

The Renewal Failures report is helpful for businesses to find a list of all subscriptions which could not be renewed in a period, allowing you to gain insights into the reasons of each subscription failure. This is particularly helpful to figure out the main errors your customers face when trying to renew subscriptions, allowing you to get them fixed for smoother future renewals. If the error is on the customers’ end, you can reach out to them and get them resolved to try to gain them back.

Scenario: Mr. Boyle, who works as part of the customer success team at Zylker, wants to find out the number of subscriptions which could not be renewed in the last month. He can use the Renewal Failures to view the list of subscriptions which failed to renew, along with the error message. Based on the report, he can take further action to reduce the number of renewal failures in the future, by fixing issues at Zylker’s end, and reaching out to customers to fix issues at their end.

Report Functions

The Retention reports in Zoho Billing support the following functions:

Report Function	Subscription Retention Cohort	Revenue Retention Cohort	Gross Revenue Retention Rate	Net Revenue Retention Rate	Renewal Summary	Renewal Failures
Filter Report	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔
Compare Report	X	X	X	✔	X	X
Group Report	X	X	X	X	X	✔
Performance Overview	X	X	✔	✔	X	X
Customize Report Columns	X	X	X	X	X	✔
Sort Columns	X	X	X	X	✔	✔
Schedule Report	X	X	✔	✔	✔	✔
Share Report	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔
Export Report	X	X	✔	✔	✔	✔
Print Report	X	X	X	X	X	✔
Custom Report	X	X	X	X	X	✔

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