Frisbii’s European Subscription Benchmark Report finds that lower-priced subscriptions show the highest churn, annual billing is the exception in B2B, and longer customer relationships do not automatically mean higher realized customer value.
Copenhagen, 19 October 2026 – A low price is no guarantee of long-term retention, annual billing is far from the norm in B2B, and a longer customer relationship does not automatically generate more value. These are among the findings of the new European Subscription Benchmark Report from Frisbii, a European platform for subscription management and recurring billing. The report tests several common assumptions about subscription businesses against aggregated and de-identified data from businesses across Europe that use the Frisbii platform.
With the report, Frisbii aims to give subscription businesses European reference points. Many existing benchmarks are based on global or predominantly North American markets, or on specific business models, and do not always reflect the realities of European businesses – from local payment habits to regulatory requirements.
Benchmarks at a glance #
Across all businesses in the benchmark, median churn stands at 1.3% per month, or 14.2% on an annualized basis. Completed customer relationships last 579 days at the median, and median realized customer lifetime value (LTV) is €591. The median marks the middle of the distribution: half of the businesses are above it, half below.
Low prices, high churn #
Price makes a clear difference – but not in a straight line. Subscriptions with an average price below €10 show annualized churn of more than 40%, the highest level in the benchmark. Between €10 and €24.99, churn remains above 30%, before falling significantly from €25 onwards. In some higher price ranges, however, churn rises again. Lower-priced subscriptions therefore show the highest churn rates, although the relationship between price and retention is not linear.
Longer relationships, but not automatically more value #
Billing frequency also shapes the picture. Annual billing is associated with the longest customer relationships – 831 days at the median, compared with 506 days for monthly billing – and with much lower churn: 1.9% annualized, compared with 25.1% for monthly billing.
Yet median realized LTV is higher for monthly billing, at €730, than for annual billing, at €613. Realized LTV is based on customer relationships that ended during the observation period. The finding does not suggest that one billing interval creates more value than another. It shows that the length of a customer relationship alone does not explain customer value – price, industry and other factors also play a role.
“What good performance looks like in the subscription economy cannot be determined by a single metric,” says Gregory Herbert, CEO of Frisbii. “A SaaS provider needs different benchmarks from a media company, just as a B2B business needs to compare itself differently from a consumer brand. In addition, many existing benchmarks are based on global or predominantly North American markets. Businesses therefore need to assess their own figures in the context of their business model and market. With our benchmark, we want to provide European companies with exactly this basis for comparison.”
In B2B, annual billing is the exception #
Annual billing is often seen as the B2B default, but the data paints a different picture. Of the B2B businesses in the benchmark, 38.6% bill monthly, 34.9% quarterly and 10.8% semi-annually. Only 13.3% bill annually. Billing frequency and contract length should not be confused, however: monthly billing does not necessarily mean that a subscription can be cancelled every month.
Performance varies across industries and business models #
Churn and customer value also differ widely between industries. eCommerce & Retail records a median annualized churn of 44.1% and Media & Entertainment 42.7% – considerably higher than SaaS & Technology at 18.8% and Healthcare & Pharmaceuticals at 10.5%. SaaS & Technology also records the highest median realized LTV at €1,062, compared with €236 in Media & Entertainment and €205 in eCommerce & Retail. By business model, median realized LTV reaches €1,021 in B2B – more than twice the B2C figure of €416.
Against this backdrop, it is difficult to define a single “good” churn rate or LTV that applies to every business. The differences highlight the importance of comparing performance with businesses in similar industries and with similar business models.
The full Frisbii European Subscription Benchmark Report is available here:
Methodology
The Frisbii European Subscription Benchmark Report is based on aggregated and de-identified data from companies using the Frisbii platform. The current analysis period runs from July 2025 to June 2026. The analysis examined key metrics relating to billing, pricing, churn, the duration of customer relationships and realised customer lifetime value, as well as differences between sectors and business models. The analysis is designed as a cross-sector European benchmark. The results represent observed benchmarks within this dataset. They do not constitute an estimate for the entire European subscription market.
