---
title: What is Voluntary vs involuntary churn?
url: https://markin.ai/glossary/voluntary-churn
category: Retention and churn
---

# Voluntary vs involuntary churn

> Voluntary churn is a customer deciding to leave. Involuntary churn is a customer leaving because a payment failed, a card expired or a renewal broke. They look identical in a cancellation report and require completely different interventions.

## Why it matters for ARPU

Involuntary churn is often a double-digit share of total churn and is far cheaper to fix than persuading someone who genuinely wants to go. Splitting the two is usually the fastest retention win available.

## Related terms

- [Churn rate](https://markin.ai/glossary/churn-rate), Churn rate is the share of customers, or of revenue, lost in a period.
- [Dunning](https://markin.ai/glossary/dunning), Dunning is the sequence of retries and communications that recovers a failed payment: retry timing, card-update prompts, alternative payment methods and grace periods.
- [Save offer](https://markin.ai/glossary/save-offer), A save offer is an incentive presented to a customer who is about to leave: a discount, a pause, a plan downgrade or a service remedy.
- [Churn prediction](https://markin.ai/glossary/churn-prediction), Churn prediction estimates the probability that a given customer will stop paying within a defined horizon, using behavioural, transactional and service signals.

## Go deeper

- [Customer churn prediction guide](https://markin.ai/blog/customer-churn-prediction-guide), Separating the two causes.
- [Retention decisioning](https://markin.ai/solutions/retention-decisioning), Different causes, different actions.

Source: https://markin.ai/glossary/voluntary-churn