Subscription Revenue Simulator
Simulate subscription revenue growth over time accounting for new subscribers and churn.
Unlike simple MRR projections that apply a net growth rate, this simulator separates acquisition from retention. Each month, your subscriber base grows by a percentage representing new sign-ups, then shrinks by a percentage representing churn. The interplay between these two rates determines whether your business is scaling, stagnating, or contracting. Even small differences between growth and churn rates produce dramatically different outcomes over 12 to 24 months due to compounding.
This separation matters because growth and churn respond to different levers. Growth rate is influenced by marketing spend, product-market fit, word-of-mouth, and sales efficiency. Churn rate is driven by product quality, customer success, onboarding effectiveness, and competitive alternatives. Understanding each rate independently allows you to diagnose problems and prioritize investments more accurately than looking at a single net growth number.
The simulator runs an iterative monthly calculation. Starting from your current subscriber count, it adds new subscribers based on your growth rate, removes churned subscribers based on your churn rate, and multiplies the resulting subscriber count by your price per subscriber to determine that month's revenue. Total revenue accumulates across all months in the simulation period.
Use this tool to model different pricing strategies, forecast the impact of reducing churn by even one or two percentage points, or understand how aggressive growth targets translate into actual subscriber counts and revenue.
Simulator
Results
How to Use
- Enter your current number of subscribers
- Set the monthly subscriber growth rate as a percentage
- Set the monthly churn rate as a percentage of existing subscribers
- Enter the price each subscriber pays per month
- Choose the number of months to simulate
- Click Calculate to see ending subscribers, final monthly revenue, and total cumulative revenue
FAQ
Why separate growth rate and churn rate instead of using net growth?
Separating growth and churn gives you a more accurate simulation because the two rates operate on different bases. New subscribers are added as a percentage of the current subscriber count, and churned subscribers are also removed as a percentage. As the subscriber base changes, the absolute number of new subscribers and churned subscribers shifts accordingly. A net growth rate hides this dynamic and can underestimate churn impact at scale.
What happens when churn rate exceeds growth rate?
When churn exceeds growth, your subscriber base shrinks each month. The simulator will show a declining subscriber count and decreasing monthly revenue. This is a critical signal that retention must improve before investing further in acquisition, because you are losing subscribers faster than you can replace them. The total revenue figure helps quantify exactly how much less you will earn over the simulation period.
How does price per subscriber affect the simulation?
Price per subscriber is a multiplier applied to the subscriber count each month to calculate revenue. It does not affect subscriber growth or churn in this simulation. In reality, pricing changes can influence both acquisition and retention rates. Use this tool to model revenue outcomes at different price points, then consider separately how a price change might affect your growth and churn rates.
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Guides that feature this tool