Education has the highest churn rate of any major industry in 2026, at 4.99% annually, according to Recurly Research’s July 2026 benchmark data. SaaS sits at the opposite end, holding the lowest churn rate among the six verticals Recurly tracks, at 3.22%. The gap between industries is wide, and the reasons are structural: how a business bills, how easy it is to cancel, and how price-sensitive the buyer is all move the number more than product quality alone.
What is the average churn rate by industry in 2026?
Recurly Research publishes median annual churn rates across its subscription network, broken into voluntary (active cancellations) and involuntary (failed payment) churn. As of July 2026, the six industries it tracks rank as follows.
Figure 1: Median annual churn rate by industry, July 2026. Source: Recurly Research.
| Industry | Total churn | Voluntary | Involuntary |
|---|---|---|---|
| Education | 4.99% | 3.30% | 1.69% |
| Ecommerce | 4.25% | 2.87% | 1.38% |
| Digital media | 4.14% | 2.55% | 1.59% |
| SaaS | 3.22% | 2.16% | 1.06% |
Table 1: Median annual churn rate by industry with voluntary/involuntary split, July 2026. Source: Recurly Research.
Education’s high churn lines up with how the sector sells: seasonal enrollment, single-course or single-term purchases, and buyers who often only need access for a fixed period. SaaS, by contrast, benefits from switching costs, integrations, and workflows that make cancellation feel like more of a decision than a default.
Is voluntary or involuntary churn the bigger problem?
Voluntary churn, a customer actively canceling, outweighs involuntary churn, a payment failing and never getting recovered, in every industry Recurly tracks. Education again sits highest on both counts: 3.30% voluntary and 1.69% involuntary. SaaS is lowest on both: 2.16% voluntary and 1.06% involuntary.
Figure 2: Voluntary versus involuntary churn share by industry, July 2026. Source: Recurly Research.
That split matters operationally. Involuntary churn is largely a billing and dunning problem, retries, updated card prompts, and smart payment routing recover much of it. Voluntary churn is a product, pricing, and cancellation-experience problem, and it is the harder one to fix with automation alone.
Figure 3: How voluntary and involuntary churn are classified. Source: standard subscription-billing definitions.
How does churn compare in non-subscription industries like telecom and banking?
Outside pure subscription software, churn runs much higher. CustomerGauge’s 2025 State of B2B Account Experience benchmark, drawn from B2B accounts across 11 industries, puts telecom churn at 31% annually and banking and financial services at 19% annually. Both figures use a different methodology and a B2B account base rather than Recurly’s consumer-subscription network, so treat the comparison as directional rather than apples-to-apples.
Figure 4: Annual churn rate, telecom and banking (CustomerGauge, B2B) versus SaaS (Recurly). Sources: CustomerGauge, Recurly Research.
The gap illustrates why subscription businesses with contract terms, integrations, and recurring billing relationships churn so much less than industries where switching providers carries little friction, like a mobile carrier or a checking account.
How is churn trending across the subscription economy?
Recurly’s broader 2025 State of Subscriptions report, covering more than 2,200 brands and 67 million subscribers, found that new-subscriber acquisition has slowed as businesses prioritize retention over growth at any cost. The acquisition rate fell from 4.1% in 2021 to 2.8% in 2025, and free trial conversion fell alongside it.
Free trial conversion, the share of trial users who become paying subscribers, dropped from 46% in 2021 to 33% in 2025 across Recurly’s network. About 20% of new acquisitions in 2025 were returning subscribers, people who churned once and came back, which is itself a sign that cancellation and win-back flows now matter as much as the initial sale.
Figure 5: Recurly network trends in acquisition and trial conversion, 2021 to 2025. Source: Recurly Research, 2025 State of Subscriptions, 2,200+ brands, 67M subscribers.
The Bottom Line
Churn is not one number. It is 3.22% for SaaS, 4.99% for education, and north of 30% for telecom, and the drivers behind each figure are different: billing friction, contract length, and how easy cancellation is. Whatever industry you operate in, involuntary churn is the fixable half through better payment retries, and voluntary churn is the half that shows up first as a cancellation, then often as a refund request. A clear, current refund policy sets expectations before a cancellation turns into a dispute, and it is worth pairing with whatever retention or dunning workflow you use to fight the involuntary side of the number.
For more on how subscription pricing and cancellation terms are shifting industry-wide, see our subscription economy market data and our subscription price increase data.
Frequently Asked Questions
What industry has the highest churn rate? Education has the highest median annual churn rate among the six major industries Recurly Research tracks, at 4.99% as of July 2026, ahead of ecommerce at 4.25% and digital media at 4.14%.
What industry has the lowest churn rate? SaaS has the lowest median annual churn rate at 3.22% as of July 2026, according to Recurly Research, split between 2.16% voluntary cancellations and 1.06% involuntary failed-payment churn.
Is voluntary or involuntary churn more common? Voluntary churn, active cancellations by the customer, makes up the majority of total churn in every industry Recurly tracks, outweighing involuntary churn from failed payments in all six verticals measured in July 2026.
How does telecom or banking churn compare to subscription software? Telecom churn averages 31% annually and banking churn averages 19%, according to CustomerGauge’s 2025 State of B2B Account Experience benchmark across 11 industries, far above SaaS’s 3.22% median annual churn from Recurly.
Sources and References
- Recurly Research. (2026). “Churn Rate Benchmarks by Industry.” Median annual churn rates, data period July 2026.
- Recurly. (2025). “The 2025 State of Subscriptions.” Analysis of 2,200+ brands and 67 million subscribers.
- CustomerGauge. (2025). “Average Churn Rate by Industry.” State of B2B Account Experience benchmark across 11 industries.
Note: All figures verified as of September 2026. Churn benchmarks shift with the economy and billing practices, so headline figures are refreshed at least twice a year.
