SaaS & Subscription Glossary
Clear definitions of key subscription business terms. Understand churn, dunning, MRR, and everything you need to grow your recurring revenue.
Popular Terms
3D Secure Authentication
3D Secure (3DS) adds an extra verification step to online payments. Learn how it affects failed payments, SCA compliance, and dunning strategy.
Read moreAccount Updater
Account Updater is a card network service that automatically updates expired or replaced card details. Learn how it works and its limits.
Read moreARR
ARR is your annualized recurring revenue from subscriptions. Learn how to calculate ARR, when to use it over MRR, and what benchmarks matter.
Read moreBilling Cycle
A billing cycle is the recurring interval between charges for a subscription. Learn how billing dates affect payment failures and churn.
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CAC
CAC measures how much you spend to acquire each new customer. Learn how to calculate it and why it matters for SaaS economics.
Card Updater
Card updater services automatically update stored credit card information when banks issue new cards. Learn how Visa Account Updater and Mastercard ABU prevent payment failures.
Churn
Churn is when customers stop using your product or service. Learn about voluntary vs involuntary churn, how to calculate churn rate, and proven strategies to reduce it.
Churn Rate
Churn rate is the percentage of customers who stop using your service in a given period. Learn the formulas, benchmarks, and how to calculate both customer and revenue churn rate.
Contraction MRR
Contraction MRR is recurring revenue lost when existing customers downgrade. Learn how it differs from churn and how failed payments can trigger downgrades.
Customer Churn
Customer churn is the rate at which customers stop doing business with you. Learn how to measure, analyze, and reduce customer churn in your subscription business.
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Delinquency Rate
Delinquency rate measures the percentage of active subscribers with overdue payments. Learn the formula, benchmarks, and how to track dunning effectiveness.
Delinquent Subscriber
A delinquent subscriber has an active subscription but failed payment. Learn how to handle these at-risk customers before they churn.
Dunning
Dunning is the process of communicating with customers to collect payment after a failed transaction. Learn how dunning works, best practices, and how to set up effective dunning sequences.
Dunning Sequence
A dunning sequence is an automated series of emails and SMS sent after a payment fails to recover the transaction and keep the customer.
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Grace Period
A grace period is the time between a failed payment and subscription cancellation. Learn how to set the right grace period for your SaaS.
Gross Revenue Retention
Gross Revenue Retention measures the percentage of recurring revenue retained without expansion. Learn the formula, benchmarks, and how to improve GRR.
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Passive Churn
Passive churn happens when customers leave without actively deciding to cancel — usually due to payment failures. Learn how it differs from active churn.
Payment Failure Rate
Payment failure rate tracks what percentage of your recurring charges fail. Learn benchmarks, causes, and how to bring your rate down.
Payment Gateway
A payment gateway processes online transactions between your app and the card networks. Learn how gateways affect retry strategy and failed payments.
Payment Method Expiration
Payment method expiration occurs when a stored credit card reaches its expiry date. Learn why this causes subscription failures and how to prevent revenue loss.
Payment Recovery
Payment recovery is the process of collecting failed payments before they become churn. Learn the strategies and tools that maximize recovery rates.
Pre-Dunning
Pre-dunning is the proactive practice of contacting customers before their payment fails, typically when their credit card is about to expire. Learn how it prevents involuntary churn.
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Reactivation
Reactivation is when a former customer returns and resumes their subscription. Learn how to optimize the reactivation process.
Recurring Billing
Recurring billing automatically charges customers on a set schedule. Learn how it works, common failure points, and how to protect your subscription revenue.
Retry Logic
Retry logic determines when and how to automatically retry failed payments. Learn how intelligent retries can recover more revenue than blind attempts.
Revenue Recovery Rate
Revenue recovery rate measures the percentage of failed payments you successfully recover. It's the key KPI for evaluating your dunning strategy.
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Smart Retries
Smart retries use machine learning to determine the optimal time to retry failed payments. Learn how they work and when you need more than just retries.
Soft Decline
A soft decline is a temporary payment rejection. Unlike hard declines, these transactions can often be recovered by retrying at the right time.
Subscription Lifecycle
The subscription lifecycle maps every stage from trial to active to churned. Learn where payment failure fits and how recovery keeps customers in the loop.
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Guides
View allPut this knowledge into action
Understanding churn is step one. Fixing it is step two. Rekko automatically recovers failed payments so you can focus on growth.