# Cohort retention analysis

> How to read Ordinary's cohort retention curves — what fraction of customers come back for a 2nd, 3rd, Nth order — and use them to benchmark loyalty.

Source: https://help.tryordinary.com/features/cohort-retention

---

> Cohort retention is available on **Advanced and higher**.

Shows, for each order number N (1 through 10), what percentage of
customers have placed at least N orders. The curve describes how
deeply your customers buy.


## How to read the curve

The x-axis is order number. The y-axis is percent of the cohort.

- **N=1** is always 100% — every customer in the cohort has at least
  one order (otherwise they wouldn't be in the cohort).
- **N=2** is your "do they come back?" rate. If 40% of customers
  place a second order, your N=2 is 40%.
- **N=3, N=4, ...** decay from there. The slope tells you whether
  customers who come back once keep buying, or whether most of your
  repeat revenue is from a small loyalist core.

### Typical shapes

- **Flat decay** — 50% → 30% → 20% → 15% — most of your
  revenue is concentrated in a repeat core; new customers drop off fast.
- **Steep then flat** — 40% → 12% → 10% → 9% — high first-repeat
  gate; anyone who passes it stays for a while.
- **Slow decay** — 60% → 50% → 42% → 38% — very loyal customer base;
  subscription stores often look like this.

## Three modes

Above the chart, a mode selector:

- **Org-wide** (default) — every customer who's placed ≥1 order.
  The store-wide retention curve.
- **Product — Any** — customers who've bought a specific product,
  bucketed by their total order count across your store. Answers:
  "when a customer buys this product, how deeply do they engage with
  my brand overall?"
- **Product — Same** — customers who've bought a specific product,
  bucketed by how many times they bought THAT product. Answers:
  "do customers come back for THIS specific product?"


Product modes require picking a product from the selector next to the
mode dropdown.

## Worked example

You run a protein powder brand. Org-wide retention curve is
100% → 45% → 30% → 22%.

- 45% at N=2 says: of everyone who ever ordered, 45% came back for
  a second order. OK for the category.
- 30% at N=3 says: 30% came back a third time. The drop from 45%
  to 30% (a 33% "exit rate" at the second-to-third jump) is a
  signal — customers who ordered twice mostly ordered a third time.
  The second order is the harder gate.
- Product — Same for your flagship flavor might be 100% → 55% → 40%.
  That's higher than the org curve because this product has a specific
  reorder pattern.

## Common questions

**Why start at N=1?**
N=1 gives you the base size so you can sanity-check the cohort. It's
always 100% by construction.

**How is the cohort defined?**
Your entire paid-customer base in the date range. Customers with 0
orders are excluded (they're "Prospects," not a retention cohort).

**Is there a time axis?**
Not yet — this chart is depth-only. A time-bucketed version (e.g. "of
customers acquired in Jan, what fraction repeated in Feb / Mar / Apr")
is the Cohort LTV report, tracked as a post-launch enhancement.

**Can I export this?**
Not yet. CSV export is on the post-launch roadmap.

## Where it feeds into other parts of Ordinary

The retention curve is also the denominator for the
[Offer calculator](https://help.tryordinary.com/features/offer-calculator) — it uses the implied
probability that a discounted first-time buyer comes back.

## Related features

- [Offer calculator](https://help.tryordinary.com/features/offer-calculator)
- [Customer lifecycle stages](https://help.tryordinary.com/features/customer-lifecycle) — the
  bucket-based view of the same underlying reality.
- [Customer lists and segments](https://help.tryordinary.com/features/customers)