Retention Reports

This page describes the Retention tab of the Monetization dashboard. For an overview of monetization reports, see Monetization Reports.

Access the retention dashboard
Retention dashboard
Cohort configuration
Retention rate
Retention FAQ

Access the retention dashboard

To view the retention dashboard, follow these steps

On the Developer Console dashboard, click the Reporting tab.
In the left menu, expand the App Statistics section and choose Monetization.
Select the Retention tab.

Retention dashboard

To view subscription insights for your app, use the available filters on the Retention tab. This tab has the following filters to target your app and subscription:

Showing Insights for - to select the app.
Subscription title (ASIN) - to select the subscription.

The Retention tab allows you to further filter the data by marketplace, device type, and cohort.

Use the Marketplace and Device type drop-downs to select the marketplace and device type that you want to see metrics for. You can select only one device type and one marketplace at a time.

Cohort configuration

New and reactivated subscriptions for a particular month makes up a cohort. The dashboard has two types of filters to configure cohorts:

Compare Cohorts: This filter contains two options, ON and OFF. If you select ON, you can select two monthly subscription cohorts by using the Select Cohort 1 and Select Cohort 2 filters.
Select Cohort: With the Select Cohort 1 and Select Cohort 2 filters, you can choose from 12 cohorts. Each cohort corresponds to a month of subscription data, so you can view data from the last 12 months.

By default, the Compare Cohorts option is ON. If you turn it OFF you can view only the Select Cohort 1 filter. This lets you view insights for one subscription cohort at a time.

Retention rate

Note: Retention rate is defined as the percentage of new subscriptions from a specific time period (such as a monthly cohort) that are still active during a later time period. For example, for all new subscriptions purchased in month 1, retention rate shows what percentage of them are still active in a later month, such as month 5 or month 6.

After you configure your cohorts, the screen shows either one or two KPI cards, depending on your selection. The KPI cards show the total number of new and reactivated subscriptions in the selected cohort, and the percentage of subscriptions that are retained as of the current month. For example, if the current month is September 2024 and you chose to compare the Jan 2024 and Dec 2023 cohorts, you can see the retention percentage of these subscriptions as of September 2024.

You can also view a graph that shows the retention rates for these cohorts by month, up to the most recently completed month. You can compare retention percentage for these cohorts for each period. You can use this data to understand how well your subscription retains customers. You can also better understand if seasonality and other promotional offerings (based on the month of offering) contribute to higher retention rates across cohorts.

Use the Select segment filter to view different retention curves for subscribers within the cohort who subscribed through Free Trial or Paid. For example, you can use this chart to understand if Paid subscribers have higher retention rates in the long term.

Retention FAQ

The following are frequently asked questions about the monetization Retention tab.

Metrics

Q: Why isn't the Subscription term/duration filter provided on the Retention dashboard?: To track retention rates more accurately, this option is not provided. For example, if a subscription has both weekly and monthly offerings, a user who cancels their weekly subscription can do so to upgrade to a monthly offering. Estimating retention rate using a weekly subscription term would incorrectly estimate that the user has canceled the subscription.
Q: What constitutes a monthly cohort if I select a particular month?: The new and reactivated subscriptions of that month constitutes the cohort. These combined values indicate the net new subscriptions for that month. The sum of new subscriptions and reactivated subscriptions for the month from the Subscription Overview dashboard and report is equal to the Net new subscriptions metric on the retention dashboard.

Retention curve

Q: Why does my retention curve peak in specific months for a specific cohort?: The peak in the retention curve means that subscriptions from that cohort, that were canceled at an earlier time, resubscribed during the specific months. You could use the peaks to track if your customers return, and also measure the effectiveness of reactivation initiatives.
Q: Why does my Overall retention curve remain flat for the first few months?: If you provide free trials to your subscription users for the first few months, your retention curves are likely to remain flat for those few months.
Q: When I select Free trial in the Select price segment filter, why does the retention curve end abruptly?: It's possible that the number of free trial subscriptions is very low (you can hover over the curve to see the exact count), or that many of your free trial users have converted to a paid plan.

Last updated: Apr 29, 2025