Analysis readout

What predicts churn

A gradient-boosted model on 18 months of subscription data, and what it says to do next.

AnalyticsSynthetic data, sample deckOctober 2026

The strongest signal is not price. It is the first two weeks.

Feature importance

Early activity outweighs plan price and support tickets.

FeatureShare of importance
Sessions in days 1 to 1431
Setup completed22
Seats invited17
Plan price9
Support tickets6
Permutation importance, hold-out set

Retention by onboarding group

Teams that finish setup keep 2x as many users at month six.

MonthSetup doneNot done
M19688
M29071
M38558
M67638
Cohort retention, synthetic

Model comparison

Logistic baselineGradient boosting
AUC, hold-out0.740.86
Top-decile lift2.1x4.3x
ExplainabilityCoefficientsSHAP values

Caveats before anyone acts

What we know

  • Early activity predicts churn well out of sample
  • The effect holds across all three plans

What we do not

  • Whether nudging setup causes retention
  • Behaviour after the March pricing change

Recommendation

Test guided setup

Ask two-week A/B on new signupsanalytics@example.com