Subscription business
Retention and expansion strategy.
A subscription business with strong initial growth was hitting a ceiling — new subscriber acquisition couldn't keep pace with churn, and expansion revenue was negligible. The retention function was reactive, focused on reactivation rather than prevention.
The challenge
Monthly churn had crept from 3% to 5% over 18 months. The team's response was to increase reactivation spending, which created a costly cycle of losing and re-acquiring the same customers. There was no churn prediction capability, no systematic understanding of why customers were leaving, and no expansion revenue mechanism beyond an annual price increase.
Our approach
We conducted a cohort-level analysis of retention patterns, identifying the behavioral signals that predicted churn weeks before cancellation. We also mapped the customer journey to identify moments where expansion opportunities were being missed — features that existed but weren't being surfaced to the right customers at the right time.
System design
We designed a three-part retention system: a predictive churn model that scored subscribers weekly, an intervention framework with escalating touchpoints matched to churn risk level, and an expansion engine that identified and surfaced upgrade opportunities based on usage patterns. The system was designed to operate continuously with minimal manual intervention.
Outcomes
Over eight months, churn decreased from 5% to 3.8% — a 24% reduction. Net revenue retention improved from 95% to 108% through the expansion mechanism. The predictive model enabled the team to intervene with at-risk customers before they reached the cancellation page, fundamentally changing the economics of the retention function.
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