Subscriber retention is the honest measure of whether a subscription is worth paying for. Every subscriber who stays is someone who decided, again, that your work earns its place in their month. We help media brands keep more of the people who join by finding where they drift away and fixing what happens there.
How we think about retention
Retention is a product question first. People stay when they get value early and often, so we look hardest at the first thirty days: what a new subscriber sees, what they use, and whether a habit forms.
We make leaving as clear and simple as joining, and we ask everyone who cancels why. Those answers are some of the most useful information a subscription business has.
What we do to reduce churn
- Group subscribers into cohorts by when and how they joined, and find where each group drops away. Our guide to measuring retention by cohort shows how.
- Rebuild the first thirty days so new subscribers get what they paid for quickly.
- Recover failed payments, expired cards and billing errors that end subscriptions people meant to keep. See how to reduce involuntary churn.
- Make cancelling simple, ask why, and act on the answers.
Before starting the studio, Stephen Han led subscription infrastructure at Vox Media for The Verge and New York Magazine, so billing recovery and retention data are familiar ground.
How you'll know it's working
- Retention at month three goes up, cohort by cohort.
- Fewer subscriptions end because of a failed payment.
- Cancellation reasons get more specific and more useful.