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Use this guide to assess subscription retention or churn and how subscription customers behave compared to one-time customers.

In the dashboard

Open the Subscription Overview module. It shows total, new, and cancelled subscription revenue (MRR), new and cancelled subscribers, and active subscribers over time. Use the Subscription Order Sequence filter to split first-time from recurring subscription orders. For product-level views, use the Subscription Product Performance module. The rest of this page covers the same analysis in the warehouse.

Key concepts

  • Subscription orders can be flagged in obt_orders through fields such as is_subscription_order and is_recurring_subscription_order.
  • Subscription lines can be flagged in obt_order_lines through fields such as is_order_line_subscription, order_line_type, and subscription_order_sequence.
  • If you’re validating against your subscription platform, start by aligning the definition of active, new, and cancelled.
  • If the cart can mix subscription and one-time items, line-level analysis is usually more accurate for product questions.

Suggested workflow

  1. Filter to valid orders: is_order_sm_valid = TRUE.
  2. Choose the right grain:
    • use obt_orders for customer retention and order-level subscription reporting
    • use obt_order_lines for mixed carts, bundles, free gifts, and product-level subscription questions
  3. Analyze:
    • subscription order frequency
    • time between subscription orders
    • churn proxy (no subscription orders in X days)
    • product mix inside subscription carts
  4. If you have a direct integration, reconcile key counts to the source platform.

Example: order-level subscription retention trend

Example: line-level subscription mix