Note
The Cohort Dashboard helps you understand the long-term value and behavior of your subscribers. Use it to analyze retention rates, Lifetime Value (LTV), and revenue generation across different customer cohorts, whether you're comparing monthly acquisition groups or custom time periods like promotional campaigns.
Before you start
Check your dashboard version: This guide covers the latest version (V3) of the Cohort Retention Dashboard. If you're using an older version, some features and metrics may appear differently. You can identify V3 by the Custom Cohort section at the top and the Subscriber/Subscription tabs.
Permissions required: You need admin access or access to analytics to view the Cohort Retention Dashboard. Learn more about permissions.
Data refresh frequency: The dashboards update every four hours. Data for the current day may lag slightly compared to real-time Shopify reporting.
What you should know: The V3 dashboard uses a state change table that creates an immutable historical timeline of every subscription's status changes. This ensures all retention metrics are calculated with absolute precision, eliminating the historical inaccuracies of older versions.
Exporting data: You can export the aggregated data as it appears in the tables on the dashboard. Raw, session-level data Exports are planned for a future update.
What is the Cohort Retention Dashboard?
The Cohort Retention Dashboard is your tool for analyzing customer retention and lifetime value across different acquisition periods. It answers critical questions like:
How does the lifetime value of subscribers acquired during our Black Friday campaign compare to those acquired in a typical month?
What percentage of a specific cohort is still active after 3, 6, or 12 months?
What is the all-time average LTV, AOV, and number of orders for our subscribers?
How much cumulative revenue does each monthly cohort generate over its lifetime?
What percentage of new subscribers cancel on the same day they sign up or before their second order?
The dashboard helps you understand the true long-term value and behavior of your subscriber base, moving beyond simple metrics to actionable retention insights.
Filters and KPI cards
At the top of the dashboard, you'll find controls for customizing your view:
Date Range: Select the time period you want to analyze
Compared to: Choose to compare your selected period to the previous period or no comparison
Net / Gross: Toggle between revenue after discounts (net) or before discounts (gross)
All segments: Filter the dashboard by a specific subscriber or subscription segment
Subscriptions: Toggle between analyzing subscriptions or subscribers
Subscriptions created: Total count of subscriptions created during the period
Cancellations: Total count of subscriptions cancelled as of today out of subscriptions created during the period
Churn Rate: Percentage of subscriptions (active at the start of the period) that cancelled as of today that were created during the period
Revenue: Total subscription revenue generated during the period from subscriptions created during the period
Average order count (AOC): The average number of subscription orders per subscriber or subscription.
Lifetime value (LTV): The average total revenue generated per subscriber or subscription.
Average order value (AOV): The average revenue per processed subscription order.
Orders: The total number of subscription orders processed.
Churn events
A visualization tracking cancellation patterns by timing and customer lifecycle stage. The chart shows when subscribers typically cancel relative to their subscription start date:
Same Day: Subscribers who cancelled on the same day they created their subscription
Before renewal: Subscribers who cancelled after their first order but before their second order processed
After 1 month: Subscribers who cancelled 30 days after creation
After 3 months: Subscribers who cancelled 90 days after creation
After 6 months: Subscribers who cancelled 180 days after creation
This visualization helps you identify critical churn points in the subscriber lifecycle. For example, high same-day cancellations may indicate checkout experience issues, while spikes at the "before renewal" stage suggest problems with first-order satisfaction or expectations. Understanding these patterns helps you target retention efforts at the right moments in the customer journey.
Lifetime Metrics
Global, all-time averages calculated across all subscribers or subscriptions. These metrics are unaffected by the date range selector and serve as stable benchmarks for comparison:
Lifetime value (LTV): Average lifetime value per customer across your complete business history. Only includes subscribers/subscriptions with at least one processed order.
Average order value (AOV): Average order value across all subscription orders
Average order count: Average number of orders per customer across all subscribers with at least one order
Average days active: Average number of days a subscription remains active before its first cancellation. This excludes days from reactivations to show how long new subscriptions typically stay active initially.
Average subscriptions: Average number of subscriptions per customer
Average products: Average count of unique recurring products per customer
3-Month (LTV): Average lifetime value per subscriber/subscription 90 days after creation, compared to last quarter
6-Month (LTV): Average lifetime value per subscriber/subscription 180 days after creation, compared to last period
12-Month (LTV): Average lifetime value per subscriber/subscription 365 days after creation, compared to last year
These milestone LTV metrics help you understand the value trajectory of your subscribers at key points in their lifecycle.
Monthly breakdown
The main visualization section with graphs and tables breaking down cohort performance over subsequent months and order counts. You can toggle between different views:
Retention by month: Percentage of cohort still active at the end of each month post-creation
Revenue by month: Total revenue generated by cohort in each specific month
LTV by month: Cumulative average lifetime value per cohort member after each month
AOC by month: Cumulative average order count per cohort member after each month
Orders by month: Total orders processed by cohort in each specific month
Retention by order count: Percentage of cohort that successfully processed each order number (Order 2, Order 3, etc.)
Understanding the Monthly Breakdown Retention view
The table shows retention rates for each monthly cohort over time:
Date column: Shows the cohort month and size. For example, "September 2025, 8 Subscriptions" means 8 subscriptions were created in September 2025. This is your cohort.
1st Month column: Shows the retention percentage in the cohort's first month. This is typically 100% because all subscriptions start as active. For the September 2025 cohort, 100% were retained in their first month.
Subsequent month columns: Track the cohort's retention over time. Each column shows what percentage of the original cohort remained active in that month. For example, if the June 2025 cohort shows 83% in the "4th Month" column, that means 83% of the original June cohort was still active four months after they signed up.
Cohort Overview
A summary table at the bottom showing each monthly cohort's performance as of today:
Cohort Month: The month subscribers or subscriptions were created
Cohort Size: Total count created in that month
Total Orders: Count of subscription orders processed by this cohort
Total Revenue: Subscription revenue generated by this cohort
Churn Rate %: Percentage of cohort that is fully churned today
AOV: Average order value for this cohort
LTV: Average lifetime value per member in this cohort