Article · ~10 min read

What is good retention?

Lenny Rachitsky · Lenny's Newsletter Free Beginner

Once you know your curve should flatten, the next question is where it should flatten, and this piece answers it with concrete benchmark ranges by business type instead of hand-waving. Lenny pooled numbers from 20-plus growth leaders and investors, so you can put your own 6-month retention next to a real bar for your category. Treat the ranges as a starting point for judgment, not a pass-fail line, since a consumer social product and an enterprise SaaS live in completely different worlds.

  • The bar is category-specific: roughly 25% good / 45% great for consumer social, 40% / 70% for consumer subscription, and 70% / 90% for enterprise SaaS at 6 months.
  • Judge yourself against your own business type, not a global average. Comparing a marketplace to a SaaS number will just mislead you.
  • It also splits user retention from net revenue retention, a useful reminder that a subscription business can look flat on users while still growing revenue per account.
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It answers 5 questions

  1. What retention benchmark should I actually aim for at pre-seed, and how do I know if my numbers are bad?
  2. What is a good retention curve and how do I know if mine is flattening?
  3. How do I set up analytics and feedback in my MVP so I actually learn something, without over-engineering tracking?
  4. My MVP works but nobody sticks around after signing up. How do I diagnose whether it's a product problem or an onboarding problem?
  5. How do I actually keep my first 10 customers so they don't quietly churn while I go chasing the next 10?

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