Metric
Six-month user retention
Share of a cohort still active (doing the value event) six months after starting. The most widely quoted practitioner bands come from a 2020 expert panel; the denominator differs by category, so match it before comparing.
Plain label: half-year retentionAlso known as: 6-month retention, M6 retention
The panel's "good" and "great" are expert labels, not percentiles; they are shown as median and top-quartile bands with that caveat. Archetype mapping is ours: consumer social to content and community, transactional to e-commerce, consumer SaaS to consumer subscription, SMB/mid-market SaaS to self-serve B2B, enterprise SaaS to sales-led B2B.
When the product's denominator differs (for example, all sign-ups instead of payers), the band is shown with a definition mismatch and the product is compared with its own best cohort instead.
Benchmarks
Every benchmark carries its year and a confidence grade for its source. Use them to calibrate, not as targets.
| Context | Median | Top 25% | Top 10% | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| consumer social, registered users; good mapped to median, great to top quartile [Analyst]Content / community | 25% | 45% | — | Lenny's Newsletter (Rachitsky and Winters), 2020Benchmark confidence B. A reputable dataset. |
| consumer transactional, users with at least one transaction; good/great mapped to median/top quartileE-commerce / DTC | 30% | 50% | — | Lenny's Newsletter (Rachitsky and Winters), 2020Benchmark confidence B. A reputable dataset. |
| consumer SaaS, paying subscriptions; good/great mapped to median/top quartileConsumer subscription | 40% | 70% | — | Lenny's Newsletter (Rachitsky and Winters), 2020Benchmark confidence B. A reputable dataset. |
| SMB and mid-market SaaS, paying subscriptions; good/great mapped to median/top quartileB2B SaaS | 60% | 80% | — | Lenny's Newsletter (Rachitsky and Winters), 2020Benchmark confidence B. A reputable dataset. |
| enterprise SaaS, paying subscriptions (good 70-75%); mapped to sales-led B2B [Analyst]B2B sales-led | 72% | 90% | — | Lenny's Newsletter (Rachitsky and Winters), 2020Benchmark confidence B. A reputable dataset. |
Sources
What is good retention · Lenny's Newsletter (Lenny Rachitsky and Casey Winters), 2020
Benchmark confidence B. A reputable dataset.
Book content is paraphrased, never quoted at length. Last verified October 24, 2026.
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