Glossary
Churn rate
The share of active players who stop playing in a period, usually a month: the number that decides how long a referred player keeps earning you money. It sets what RevShare is worth against a fixed CPA.
Also called: churn, player churn, attrition rate.
The usual formula: players active at the start of the month who are inactive by its end, divided by players active at the start. What counts as inactive varies by program, from no bet in 30 days to no deposit in 90. Programs rarely publish churn, but you can estimate it from your own reports by tracking how many players from each FTD month are still active.
With steady churn, a player's expected active life is roughly 1 divided by the churn rate. Hypothetically, at 25% monthly churn players last about 4 months; at 10%, about 10. If an active player brings $40 of NGR a month and you take 30%, that is about $48 per player in the first case and $120 in the second: the same percentage, 2.5 times the money.
Real churn is not steady. It peaks in the first weeks, when bonus hunters and single-deposit players leave, and flattens for those who stay. A source with high early churn can work on CPA and fail on RevShare, so pick the deal model to fit the churn curve, not the other way around.
Related terms: RevShare, LTV, Cohort analysis, ARPU, CPA.