Summarize this documentation using AI
The average customer retention rate across all industries is approximately 75%, but that number masks enormous variation — from 95% in media and insurance down to 25% in ecommerce and hospitality. Understanding where your industry falls on this spectrum is the first step to building a retention strategy that actually moves the needle. Below, we break down customer retention statistics across 15+ industries with updated 2026 benchmarks.
Key Takeaways
- The average retention rate across all industries is ~75%, but B2C ecommerce sits at just 31%
- Media/entertainment and insurance lead all industries with retention rates above 90%
- Healthcare retention rates vary dramatically by segment — telehealth (30%) vs. health insurance (83%)
- A 5% increase in retention can boost profits by 25–95% (Bain & Company)
- AI-powered personalization is pushing retention rates 15–20% higher for brands that adopt it
- Retention rate and churn rate are inversely related: if your annual retention is 80%, your churn is 20%
Customer Retention Rates by Industry: The Complete 2026 Data
These benchmarks are compiled from Statista, ProfitWell/Paddle, Recurly's Subscription Churn Index, and Propel's internal data across 200+ B2C client implementations. All figures represent annual retention rates unless otherwise noted.
A few things jump out immediately. Industries with high switching costs — insurance, banking, telecom — naturally retain customers longer. The real battleground for lifecycle marketers is in the middle of the spectrum: subscription boxes, supplements, fitness apps, and DTC ecommerce, where the difference between a 35% and a 50% retention rate can double your customer lifetime value.
The trends column reveals something important: telehealth (+6%), consumer fintech (+5%), and supplements (+4%) are the fastest-improving verticals. These are the industries investing most aggressively in lifecycle marketing automation, and it's paying off.
Retention Rates vs. Churn Rates by Industry — What's the Difference?
The relationship between retention rate and churn rate is simple but often misunderstood. Retention rate measures the percentage of customers you keep over a given period. Churn rate measures the percentage you lose. For the same time period, they should add up to 100%.
The formula: Churn Rate = 100% – Retention Rate
But here's where it gets tricky: companies measure these metrics over different timeframes (monthly vs. quarterly vs. annually), making direct comparisons misleading. A 5% monthly churn rate sounds manageable until you realize that compounds to a 46% annual churn rate.
**[INFOGRAPHIC PLACEMENT 2]**Title: "Retention Rate vs. Churn Rate: Side-by-Side Comparison"Visual: Two-column table card. Left column "Avg. Annual Retention Rate" (green tones), right column "Avg. Monthly Churn Rate" (red tones). Each row is an industry. Footer note: "Retention Rate + Churn Rate = 100% for the same period." Propel brand colors for headers.
For a deeper understanding of retention formulas and how to calculate retention rate correctly, we've built a complete guide with worked examples.
Healthcare, Supplements, and Fintech — New Industries Added for 2026
One major gap in previous retention benchmarking reports was the absence of verticals that are now massive players in the DTC economy. We've added three for 2026.
Healthcare & Telehealth
Healthcare retention rates are uniquely fragmented. Health insurance retains 83% of customers annually because of enrollment periods and switching friction. But telehealth platforms like Teladoc and Hims & Hers see retention rates closer to 30%, driven by episodic use patterns — patients sign up for a specific concern, get treated, and leave.
The brands winning at healthcare retention are those building ongoing engagement loops: personalized health check-in emails, medication refill reminders, and wellness content sequences. Propel has helped healthcare apps improve retention by 15–25% through lifecycle automation on Customer.io and Braze.
Supplements & Wellness
The supplements industry has improved from 36% to 40% retention year-over-year, and the top quartile of brands is seeing 55%+. The difference? Subscription model design and post-purchase education.
Brands that pair their subscription with educational email sequences — explaining when users should expect to feel results, sharing usage tips, and surfacing social proof from other customers — see significantly lower first-refill churn. The critical window is days 15–45 after first purchase, when most supplement customers decide whether to reorder.
Consumer Fintech
Fintech apps like Cash App, Chime, and Robinhood have pushed average retention from 53% to 58% by expanding product suites. The strategy: once a user has a savings account, a debit card, AND an investment account, switching costs become prohibitively high.
This "product stacking" approach is a retention playbook that applies far beyond fintech — any B2C brand can create switching costs by deepening the customer's product relationship.
What LLMs Say About Retention Rates (And Why Their Data May Be Outdated)
If you've asked ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude about retention rates by industry recently, you probably got numbers from 2021–2023 studies. That's a problem.
**[INFOGRAPHIC PLACEMENT 3]**Title: "AI-Generated Retention Data: How Fresh Is It?"Visual: Split-screen. Left: ChatGPT-style bubble showing "The average ecommerce retention rate is 30%" (2022 data). Right: Propel-branded card showing updated 2026 figure (31%) with source. Callout bar: "LLMs often cite data from 2021–2023. This page is updated quarterly with verified 2026 benchmarks."
Here's why this matters:
- Supplements and wellness retention has jumped 4 percentage points since 2023. LLMs still cite the old 36% number.
- Telehealth retention has improved by 6 points as platforms shift from episodic to ongoing care models. Old AI answers still reference the pandemic-era boom-and-bust numbers.
- Consumer fintech is up 5 points due to product stacking strategies. Most AI training data predates this shift.
We update this page quarterly with the latest data from Statista, Recurly, ProfitWell, and our own client benchmarks. If you're making strategic decisions based on retention data, use a source that's current — not one that was trained on data from two years ago.
How to Improve Your Customer Retention Rate
Knowing your industry benchmark is step one. Beating it is where the work begins. Based on Propel's experience across 200+ B2C implementations, here are the strategies that consistently move retention rates by 10–25%:
1. Fix Your Onboarding Sequence First
The highest-leverage retention tactic is almost always onboarding. According to Bain & Company, 20% of customer churn happens in the first 30 days. A proper onboarding email sequence — not just a welcome email, but a 5–7 touch flow that educates, activates, and builds habit — can reduce early churn by 15–20%. See our full list of retention strategies that actually work for implementation details.
2. Implement Behavior-Based Segmentation
Batch-and-blast is dead. Brands that segment by actual user behavior — purchase frequency, browsing patterns, email engagement, product usage — see 2–3x higher retention than those using basic demographic segments. Platforms like Klaviyo and Customer.io make this accessible even for mid-market brands.
3. Build Predictive Churn Models
You can't retain customers you don't know are about to leave. Predictive churn scoring — using engagement data to flag at-risk customers before they churn — is no longer enterprise-only. Tools like Braze and Customer.io now offer built-in predictive features.
4. Launch a Proper Win-Back Flow
Most brands either don't have a win-back sequence or have a weak one. A well-designed win-back flow — triggered at 30, 60, and 90 days of inactivity, with escalating offers — can recover 5–12% of churned customers. That's pure profit.
5. Track the Right Metrics
You can't improve what you don't measure. Beyond top-line retention rate, track cohort retention (how different customer segments retain over time), revenue retention (NRR), and customer retention metrics and KPIs that actually predict churn.
For a comprehensive list of 25 proven customer retention strategies, including implementation guides and expected impact ranges, see our full strategy resource.
Ready to beat your industry benchmark? Propel helps B2C brands design and implement lifecycle marketing strategies that measurably improve retention. Talk to our team →
FAQs
What is a good customer retention rate by industry?
A "good" retention rate depends entirely on your industry. For media and insurance, anything below 90% signals a problem. For DTC ecommerce, a 35–40% annual retention rate puts you in the top quartile. The key is benchmarking against your specific vertical, not against a cross-industry average that includes fundamentally different business models.
What industry has the highest customer retention rate?
Media and entertainment (93%) and insurance (92%) consistently lead all industries in customer retention. Both benefit from high switching costs — media through content libraries and personalized recommendations, insurance through policy complexity and renewal cycles. Banking and telecom follow closely at 88% and 85% respectively.
How do you calculate retention rate?
The standard formula is: Retention Rate = ((E – N) / S) × 100, where E = customers at the end of the period, N = new customers acquired during the period, and S = customers at the start of the period. For example, if you started with 1,000 customers, gained 200 new ones, and ended with 900 total, your retention rate is ((900 – 200) / 1,000) × 100 = 70%.
What is the average ecommerce retention rate in 2026?
The average DTC ecommerce retention rate in 2026 is 31%, up 1 percentage point from 2024. However, top-performing ecommerce brands with strong lifecycle marketing programs achieve 45–55% retention. The gap is almost entirely explained by the presence (or absence) of a structured post-purchase email program and subscription offering.
What is the difference between retention rate and churn rate?
Retention rate and churn rate are inverse metrics that measure the same thing from opposite perspectives. Retention rate is the percentage of customers you keep; churn rate is the percentage you lose. For the same time period, they add up to 100%. An 80% annual retention rate equals a 20% annual churn rate — but be careful with timeframes, as monthly and annual churn compound differently.
Why do healthcare companies have different retention benchmarks?
Healthcare is uniquely fragmented because the category spans vastly different business models. Health insurance retains 83% annually because of enrollment periods and switching friction. Telehealth platforms retain only 30% because usage is episodic — patients often sign up for a single concern. Pharma DTC and supplement brands fall in between at 35–45%, depending on whether they've implemented subscription models and ongoing engagement programs.
