Contraction Before Cancellation
The death spiral in numbers — accounts that trim their plan, then cancel entirely soon after.
What is it?
Contraction Before Cancellation counts the accounts that fully cancelled within a short window — typically ninety days — after first contracting. It captures a specific, common death spiral: a customer trims their plan, then leaves entirely soon after.
It turns contraction into an early-warning list. Most of these cancellations were foreseeable, because the account signalled trouble with a downgrade before it churned — which means there was a window to intervene.
How to calculate?
Count the accounts that recorded a contraction event and then a full cancellation within the defined window. Five such accounts in a month is five saves you had a chance at. The window length is the key parameter — long enough to be causal, short enough to be actionable.
Use it operationally: every account that contracts should enter a save motion, and this metric measures how often that motion is failing.