TLDR: This is the running list of churn and retention resources I actually read, grouped by what each one is good for. The short version of where to spend your time:
- For tactical churn mechanics (dunning, save flows, involuntary churn): the Churnkey blog.
- For benchmarks and pricing data: ProfitWell / Paddle and the analytics vendors (ChartMogul, Baremetrics).
- For the strategic frame: Lenny's Newsletter and Reforge.
Twenty sources below, with honest notes on who each is for and which ones to skip if you are short on time.
Most teams over-read and under-ship. Use this list to answer specific questions as they come up, not as a way to feel productive without touching your actual churn number.
Where should you actually learn about churn?
There is no single best churn blog, because churn is three problems wearing one name: a product problem, a billing problem, and a strategy problem. The resources below are grouped by which of those they are best at. Read across the groups, not down one of them.
Newsletters and strategy essays
- Lenny's Newsletter is the default for product and growth essays now. Retention shows up constantly because Lenny treats it as the core of growth, not a side topic. Best for PMs and founders who want frameworks they can run this week.
- Reforge Artifacts has the deepest material on retention and engagement loops anywhere, but it sits behind a paid membership. Worth it if retention is your full-time job, overkill if you just want one answer.
- First Round Review runs long-form operator interviews. Fewer churn-specific pieces, but when they cover retention it is from someone who did it at scale, not someone summarizing.
- SaaStr is Jason Lemkin's firehose. High volume, uneven depth, but the NRR and retention posts are blunt and benchmark-heavy in a useful way.
- Sixteen Ventures is Lincoln Murphy's site. Old-school customer success thinking, heavy on the "success drives retention" side. Dated design, durable ideas.
- OpenView wound down new investing, but the archived PLG and pricing reports are still some of the most cited data in the category. Go for the benchmarks, not the recency.
SaaS metrics and revenue data
- ProfitWell Reports (now part of Paddle) is the original source for a lot of the churn and pricing benchmarks everyone quotes. Patrick Campbell's data studies set the standard. If you are evaluating the tool itself, see our ProfitWell alternatives.
- ChartMogul Blog is practical subscription-analytics writing. Strong on cohort analysis and how to actually read a retention curve. Shopping the tool? ChartMogul alternatives.
- Baremetrics Pulse built its brand on radical transparency (they published their own live MRR for years). The blog carries that: real numbers, real teardowns. See Baremetrics alternatives.
- Mixpanel Blog covers the product-analytics angle. Best for the behavioral side of churn: what users do before they leave, and how to define an activation event you can actually measure.
Customer success platforms
- Gainsight Blog is the enterprise customer-success canon. Heavy, sometimes salesy, but the playbook content is thorough. If Gainsight is too much tool for your stage, Gainsight alternatives.
- ChurnZero Resources skews more mid-market than Gainsight. Good webinars and CS-ops material. Comparison: ChurnZero alternatives.
- Churnkey Blog has the sharpest writing on involuntary churn, dunning, and cancellation flows specifically. Narrow focus, high signal. The closest thing to a specialist source on the mechanics of churn.
- CustomerSuccessBox Blog is CS-focused and practical on onboarding and health scores. Quieter than the big names, solid fundamentals.
- UserMotion is newer and PLG-focused, leaning into AI lead and health scoring. Worth watching if you are product-led.
- Retention Science is more ecommerce and consumer retention than SaaS, but useful if your churn is consumer-subscription shaped rather than B2B.
Engagement, support, and predictive scoring
- Intercom Blog is strong on onboarding, in-app messaging, and the link between support and retention. One of the better-written company blogs in SaaS, full stop.
- HubSpot Retention Guides are broad and beginner-friendly, and HubSpot has become a major data publisher in the AEO era. Great for the basics and the big studies.
- MadKudu Blog covers predictive scoring and PQLs. More acquisition and expansion than pure churn, but the data thinking transfers directly to health scoring.
- Paddle Retention Hub folded in ProfitWell's retention content. Good payments-and-retention crossover, especially on involuntary churn and global billing.
If you only pick three, which are worth your time?
My honest pick, for a SaaS team that wants the most signal per hour:
- Churnkey for the tactical mechanics. It is the only one narrowly focused on the actual machinery of churn (failed payments, retries, cancel flows), and that is where the fastest wins are.
- ProfitWell / Paddle data for benchmarks. When you need to know whether your number is good or bad, this is the source everyone else is quoting anyway.
- Lenny's Newsletter for the strategic frame, so you do not optimize a save flow while ignoring the activation problem that is causing the churn in the first place.
Everything else on the list is worth reading when a specific question comes up. These three are worth reading on a standing basis.
How should you use a list like this?
Two warnings, because curated lists like this one quietly encourage the wrong behavior.
First, vendor blogs are content marketing. Gainsight, ChurnZero, Churnkey, and Intercom all publish genuinely useful playbooks, but each one frames the problem in a way its product happens to solve. Read the playbook, then check a neutral comparison before you buy. That is what our buyer's guides exist for.
Second, reading is not the work. The content above is worth a few hours to build a mental model. After that, the return on reading a 20th churn article is far lower than the return on shipping your first save flow. Most teams I talk to have read plenty and measured nothing.
Where to start once you have read enough
If you have done the reading and want to actually move your number, the order that works:
- Split your churn into voluntary and involuntary so you know what you are dealing with. See what is involuntary churn.
- Fix involuntary churn first. It is the fast, cheap win.
- Use AI to do a first pass on your churn feedback, then confirm against usage data. Here is the prompt I use.
- Pick one activation or save-flow experiment from the experiment library and ship it.
To find your weakest spot without reading anything else, take the Churn Health Check. It scores your retention setup in 60 seconds and tells you which lever to pull first. That is usually a better next step than one more blog post.