Cohort Analysis
Track retention, recovery, and revenue performance by customer cohorts over time. Identify trends, compare cohort groups, and understand how your recovery program improves across signup months.
Cohort analysis is available on the Revenue Recovery System plan and above. Recovery Engine users see demo data with an upgrade prompt.
The Cohort Analysis page groups your customers or payment failures into monthly cohorts and tracks how each group performs over time. This gives you a longitudinal view that point-in-time metrics cannot provide — you can see whether your recovery program is genuinely improving month over month.
Cohort Types
The page offers three cohort views, selectable via tabs at the top:
Retention Cohorts
Groups customers by the month they signed up and tracks what percentage remain active in each subsequent month. This reveals your involuntary churn curve — the rate at which customers are lost due to payment failures that LostChurn could not recover.
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Cohort | The signup month |
| Size | Number of customers who signed up that month |
| M0 | Percentage still active at signup (always 100%) |
| M1, M2, ... | Percentage still active after 1, 2, ... months |
A healthy retention curve flattens out after the first few months. If the curve keeps dropping linearly, your recovery efforts may not be reaching certain failure types.
Recovery Cohorts
Groups payment failures by the month they first occurred and tracks the recovery rate over subsequent months. This shows how quickly and effectively failures are resolved.
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Cohort | The month the payment first failed |
| Size | Number of payment failures that month |
| M0 | Recovery rate in the same month as the failure |
| M1, M2, ... | Cumulative recovery rate after 1, 2, ... months |
Improving M0 values in newer cohorts indicates that your retry logic and dunning campaigns are getting better over time.
Revenue Cohorts
Groups customers by signup month and tracks MRR contribution over time. This combines retention with expansion/contraction revenue to show the true economic value of each cohort.
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Cohort | The signup month |
| Size | Number of customers who signed up that month |
| M0 | Total MRR from the cohort at signup |
| M1, M2, ... | MRR contribution after 1, 2, ... months |
Revenue cohorts that grow over time indicate healthy expansion revenue. Cohorts that decay faster than the retention curve suggest pricing or downgrade issues compounding payment failures.
Reading the Heatmap
The primary visualization is a cohort heatmap — a matrix where:
- Rows represent cohort months (oldest at top, newest at bottom)
- Columns represent periods since the cohort started (M0, M1, M2, ...)
- Cell color intensity represents the metric value — darker green means higher retention, recovery rate, or MRR
The diagonal pattern is natural: newer cohorts have fewer data points because less time has passed. Look for:
- Consistent color across a column — steady performance across cohorts
- Color getting darker toward the bottom — improving performance in newer cohorts
- Sudden color changes in a row — something changed for that specific cohort (a campaign, a PSP change, etc.)
Cohort Trend Comparison
Below the heatmap, you can select up to six cohorts to compare on a line chart. This is useful for:
- Comparing a cohort before and after you launched a new dunning campaign
- Seeing whether seasonal cohorts (e.g., Q4 signups) behave differently
- Identifying outlier cohorts that over- or under-perform
Click the cohort badges to toggle them on and off. The chart updates in real time.
KPI Cards
Four summary metrics appear at the top of the page:
| KPI | Description |
|---|---|
| Best Cohort | The cohort with the highest metric value at period M1 |
| Average Rate | Mean retention or recovery rate across all cohorts at M1 |
| Cohort Size Trend | Whether recent cohorts (last 3 months) are larger or smaller than the prior 3 months |
| Rate Improvement | Whether recent cohorts perform better than older ones at the same period |
Filters
| Control | Options |
|---|---|
| Cohort type | Retention, Recovery, Revenue |
| Date range | Last 6 months, Last 12 months |
Exporting Data
Click Export CSV to download the full cohort matrix as a CSV file. The export includes cohort label, period offset, metric value, cohort size, and cohort type — suitable for further analysis in a spreadsheet or BI tool.
Next Steps
- Recovery Metrics — understand the metrics that feed into recovery cohorts
- Revenue Forecasting — use cohort trends to project future revenue
- Campaign Performance — see how campaigns affect cohort recovery rates
Engagement Analytics
Track email delivery funnels, recovery attribution by method, and customer engagement metrics to optimize your recovery program.
Revenue Forecasting
Project future MRR, predict involuntary churn risk, and identify revenue at risk from payment failure patterns. Use scenario analysis and confidence intervals to plan your recovery strategy.