Understanding Subscription Metrics

The Subscriptions report includes quite a few metrics. To make the report easier to understand, we created a few new metrics from the raw ones we import from the stores. The new metrics fall into two categories: aggregate metrics and calculated metrics.

Aggregate metrics, which sum together several metrics with the same purpose (ex. Activations)
Calculated metrics, which use two or more existing metrics to offer an easier way to look at the data (ex. Churn).

Here are all the metrics the Subscriptions report offers:

Essential

Metrics in this category are the core of your subscriptions business, and are available for apps sold through the App Store, the Mac App Store, Google Play, and Amazon.

Paying subscriptions - The number of paying subscriptions that are active as of the last day of the period, including standard price and discounted subscriptions.

Note: This is an Apple specific metric, so you'll see this metric when selecting only iOS subscriptions. If Google subscriptions are also included you'll default to All Active Subscriptions.
Net revenue - The amount of money generated by subscriptions for the selected period, after the store's fee.
Gross revenue - The total amount of revenue generated by subscriptions before the store's takes their 15/30% fee.
Active subscriptions - The number of subscriptions paying full price. This is a legacy metric that will be removed in the future.
Activations - The number subscriptions that have been activated in the period, including: activations from new subscriptions, re-activations, trials converting to paying subscriptions, and tier/plan changes. This is an aggregate metric.
Cancellations - The number subscriptions that were not renewed directly by the customer, or as a result of moving to a different tier or plan. This is an aggregate metric.
All Active Subscriptions - The total number of subscriptions that are currently active, including paying, free, and discounted subscriptions. This is the only active number provided by Google for Android apps.

Advanced

Metrics in this category offer more insight into the health of your subscription business.

MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue) - The amount of revenue subscriptions are earning in a month. MRR includes revenue generated from monthly subscriptions, as well as well as the monthly portion of longer term subscriptions.

Example: Let's say your app offers two subscription levels: one is monthly, and costs $8/mo., and the other is yearly, and costs $60/yr.

This month, 4 subscriptions were activated. Two were monthly and two annually. Your immediate revenue will be $136, and your MRR is going to be $26/mo.

The calculation is: (2 x $8) + 2 x ($60/12) = $26
Gross MRR - The total amount of revenue the subscriptions earn in a month, prior to the store's fee of 15/30%.
Churn - Subscriptions that have been cancelled as a percent of total active subscriptions. This is a calculated metric.

Daily Churn is the sum of Cancellations over the last 31 days (including the current day) divided by the Active Subscriptions for the day, 30 days before the starting day.

Example: Churn on April 30th = Cancellations from March 31st to April 30th (including the starting and ending days for a total of 31 days) divided by the Active Subscriptions on March 31st.

Let's say you have 240 cancellations and 622 active subscriptions.

The churn calculation is: (240 / 622 * 100) = 38.59%

Monthly Churn is the sum of Cancellations within the month (from the first to last day) divided by the Active Subscriptions on the 1st day of the month.

Example: April Monthly Churn = Cancellations from April 1st to April 30th divided by the Active Subscriptions on April 1st

Let's say you have 236 cancellations and 625 active subscriptions.

The churn calculation is: (236 / 625* 100) = 37.76%
1st year subscriptions - The number of subscriptions that have been active for less than a year. Stores deduct a higher fee for these subscriptions. This metric is only available for iOS and Mac apps.
Non 1st year subscriptions - The number of subscriptions that have been active for more than a year. Stores deduct a lower fee for these subscriptions. This is a calculated metric, and is only available for iOS and Mac apps.
New subscriptions - For iOS apps - The number of new subscriptions that were activated by new customers who did not participate in a trial.
New subscriptions - For Google apps - The number of new subscriptions + trial activations.

Trial

Metrics in this category offer information about free trials. Trial subscriptions aren't included in your other metrics because they're not paying subscriptions. Apple and Amazon currently breakout information on trials.

Active trials - The number of subscriptions that are currently active in trial. Note: Active Trials includes promo/intro pricing subscriptions as they are not subscriptions paying full price.
Active Free trials - The number of subscriptions that are currently in a free trial, excluding any promo or intro pricing subscriptions. Only trials that are free are included.
New trials - The number of new trial subscriptions that have been activated in the selected period.
Cancelled trials - The number of trial subscriptions that chose not to convert to a paying subscription. This metric includes upgrades and downgrades.

Detailed

Metrics in this category offer an even deeper insight into the performance of your subscription business, but are already aggregated into either Activations or Cancellations above. Apple is the only store that currently provides these metrics.

Transitions in - The total number of upgrades, downgrades, and crossgrades that resulted in a subscription activation. This is an aggregate metric.
Transitions out - The total number of subscriptions that have been cancelled as a result of the customer upgrading, downgrading, or crossgrading to a different subscription tier/plan. This is an aggregate metric.
Cancelled subscriptions - The number of subscriptions that have been cancelled. We include refunds in this metric (App Store Connect does not). We exclude trial cancellations from cancelled subscriptions as it's a completely separate metric. However, App Store Connect includes trial cancellations in subscription cancellations. This also includes cancelled subscriptions when the subscriber does not approve a price increase.
Trial conversions - The number of subscriptions that have started as a trial and converted to a paying subscription.
Reactivations - The number of subscriptions that were activated after having expired and not renewed immediately. Reactivations with an upgrade are include (App Store Connect does not include reactivations in upgrades).
Renewals - When a subscription ends and is automatically renewed. Apple breaks out renewals separately where Google does not.
Discounted Subscriptions - The number of active subscriptions that are paying a discounted price.
All Subscriptions - The total number of active subscriptions, including those paying full price, discounted price, and free trials.

Billing

Apple is the only store that currently reports on these metrics.