What is reactivation rate?
Reactivation rate is the share of dormant or churned users who came back to meaningful activity. It measures how well you recover users you had already lost.
It is valuable out of proportion to its size. Reactivated users are revenue you already paid to acquire once, so winning them back is usually cheaper than finding new ones.
The formula.
Reactivation rate = (reactivated users divided by the dormant base) times 100. Decide what dormant and reactivated mean for your product and hold those definitions steady.
The base can be churned customers or simply inactive users, depending on the question. Keep it consistent so changes in the rate reflect your efforts, not a shifting definition.
A worked example.
Of 1,000 dormant users, 60 return to active use after a win-back campaign. Reactivation rate is 60 divided by 1,000, times 100, which is 6%.
What is a good reactivation rate?
It is usually a small number, and there is no fixed target. The real measure is the trend and the revenue recovered relative to the cost of the campaign. Because reactivating a known user tends to cost less than acquiring a new one, even a modest rate can pay off well.
Reactivation works the opposite side of the coin from churn. Reading it next to the churn it works against shows whether you are refilling the bucket faster than it empties.
How to improve it.
Give lapsed users a specific reason to return, whether a new capability, a targeted offer, or proof you fixed what drove them away. Generic we miss you messages rarely move the number.
The most durable reactivation comes from staying visible where former users look, so you can win back attention organically rather than buying it back.