{"id":6965,"date":"2026-10-20T21:53:35","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T14:53:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adtek.agency\/glossary\/retention-rate\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T21:53:35","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T14:53:35","slug":"retention-rate","status":"publish","type":"mona_glossary","link":"https:\/\/adtek.agency\/en\/glossary\/retention-rate\/","title":{"rendered":"Retention rate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Retention rate is the percentage of users from a group that started at the same time who are still coming back to a product after a set number of days. For apps, it is usually read at Day 1, Day 7 and Day 30 after install.<\/p>\n

What is retention rate?<\/h2>\n

Retention always comes with a cohort, meaning a group of users who share a start date: the day they installed the app, first visited the website or placed their first order. A claim like “the app retains 40% of users” means nothing until you say which group and after how many days.<\/p>\n

What counts as “coming back” also has to be defined up front. In GA4’s cohort exploration, you can set the return criterion to any event, a transaction, a conversion or a specific event (Google Analytics Help, accessed October 2026<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Retention rate formula<\/h2>\n

Day N retention = Users in the cohort who return on day N \/ Total users in the cohort \u00d7 100%<\/strong><\/p>\n

Google gives an example: 4 people visit a website on October 1. On October 2, 3 of them come back, so Day 1 retention is 75%. On October 8, 2 are left, so Day 7 retention is 50% (Google Analytics Help, Retention overview, accessed October 2026<\/a>).<\/p>\n

That method is called Standard. GA4 also offers Rolling (counting only people who returned in every consecutive period) and Cumulative (counting people who returned in any period). Run the same data through all three and you get three different numbers.<\/p>\n

Where to measure retention: GA4 and App Store Connect (2026 update)<\/h2>\n