01 / Value
Lifetime Value Calculator
What an average member is worth across their whole membership.
Open →Free Membership Tool
Membership Revenue Growth Forecaster
See where your membership lands in five years. Set your joins, churn and revenue per member, and watch the projection update live.
It also shows the ceiling your current numbers are heading towards.
One year of the model
- RETAINKeep
members × (1 − churn)
- RECRUITAdd
this year’s new joins
- REVENUEValue
members × revenue per member
- FORECASTRepeat
for up to five years
01/ the forecaster
Where will you be in five years?
Your Membership
Where are you today?
Your Forecast
In 5 years
£300,000
Projected annual revenue · +0% vs today
1,000Projected members
+0Net member change
Growing
You are growing — but the gap between your join rate and churn sets a ceiling. Lowering churn raises it.
That is where 5 years of your current join and churn rates lands you.
Hit this forecast — let's chat →Fifteen minutes, and we come to you with a view — not a pitch deck.
Estimates only, for planning purposes. Figures are not stored and nothing leaves your browser.
02/ how it works
Forecasting Membership Growth
Membership growth is a tug of war between two forces: the new members you recruit and the members you lose to churn.
This forecaster models that tension year by year.
Each year it keeps the members you retain: your current base multiplied by one minus your churn rate.
Then it adds the new members you recruit, and values the result at your average revenue per member.
- 01Force one
New members you recruit
Added to the base every year.
- 02Force two
Members you lose to churn
Taken from the whole base every year.
- 03The result
Members × revenue per member
Projected annual revenue, year by year.
03/ the ceiling
Growth settles where joins replace losses.
The number that surprises most organisations is the ceiling.
Growth does not continue indefinitely; it settles where annual joins exactly replace annual losses, at roughly joins ÷ churn rate.
Recruit 150 members a year against 15% churn and you plateau near 1,000 members no matter how hard you push acquisition.
The only way to lift that ceiling is to reduce churn. That is why the cost of churn is worth understanding alongside this forecast.
Ceiling at 150 joins a year
04/ pressure-test targets
Acquisition or retention? Usually retention.
Use it to pressure-test targets.
If the five-year revenue figure falls short of your plan, the model shows whether the faster route is more acquisition or better retention. Usually it is retention.
For trade associations and professional bodies alike, the lever that compounds fastest is keeping each cohort longer.
Better retentionMore acquisition
In the modelA lower churn rateMore new members a year
Compounds byKeeping each cohort longerRecruiting each year
→ Usually retention
05/ realistic inputs
Honest inputs, honest forecast.
For a realistic churn input, Marketing General puts the median association renewal rate at 82% (2026 report; around 18% churn). First-year renewal is just 75% (2024 report, the most recent published in full).
So newer cohorts churn far faster, and your blended rate depends heavily on how many first-year members you carry. Not sure of your own rate? Work it out first with the membership retention calculator.
The 2025 report is a reality check on ambition: only 45% of associations grew their membership in the past year, and 49% raised their dues.
A forecast built on honest joins, churn and revenue-per-member inputs, informed by your member lifetime value, tells you early which camp you are heading for.
06/ nominal and real
Is revenue growing, or just keeping up?
The forecaster holds revenue per member flat, so its answer is in today’s pounds.
If you raise dues each year, compare the rise with prices. UK CPI rose 3.1% in the 12 months to August 2026, and services 3.4% (ONS); the Bank of England’s target is 2% (Bank of England).
A rise at or below inflation keeps real revenue per member roughly flat. Only the part above it is growth. Enter revenue net of VAT (HMRC VAT Notice 701/5).
Two cautions on the other inputs. Churn: retention climbs as a cohort ages because the likeliest leavers go first (Fader and Hardie, 2007), so a base that recruits heavily carries more members at the riskiest stage.
Joins: research on brand growth finds acquisition “roughly twice as important” as reduced defection (Ehrenberg-Bass Institute). The ceiling moves with joins too.
UK inflation, 12 months to August 2026
07/ how we calculate this
How we calculate this.
The model compounds churn against your whole base each year, which is why growth plateaus at the ceiling of joins ÷ churn. Renewal benchmarks below come from nearly 500 associations.
The formula
- Each year: membersₙ = membersₙ₋₁ × (1 − churn) + new joins
- Revenue = members × revenue per member
- Growth ceiling = annual joins ÷ churn rate
Written by Dan Keegan
09/ questions
Forecasting — FAQs.
How do you forecast membership revenue growth?
Project each year forward by retaining the previous year’s members (multiplying by one minus the churn rate) and adding new joins. Multiply the resulting member count by average revenue per member to get projected revenue. Repeating this year on year reveals whether your join rate outpaces churn — a live question when only 45% of associations grew membership in the past year (MGI 2025).
What is the membership steady state or ceiling?
Membership growth naturally plateaus where annual joins exactly replace annual losses. That ceiling equals annual joins divided by the churn rate — for example, 150 joins a year at 15% churn settles at around 1,000 members. Lowering churn raises the ceiling far more efficiently than simply recruiting harder.
Is the membership revenue growth forecaster free?
Yes. The forecaster is completely free, with no sign-up required — like every tool in our free membership calculator suite.
Are my figures stored?
No. Everything you enter is an estimate for planning purposes: all calculations happen in your browser, and nothing is stored or sent to us.
15 minutes · video or phone
Want to beat this forecast?
Book a free consultation and we’ll pinpoint whether acquisition, retention or ancillary revenue is the fastest path to your five-year target.
- 0115 minutes, video or phone
- 02Your forecast, pressure-tested
- 03The fastest lever to your target
- 04A plain next step
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Want to Beat This Forecast?
Book a free consultation and we’ll pinpoint whether acquisition, retention or ancillary revenue is the fastest path to your five-year target.
11/ sources
Every claim, and where it came from
Vendor and US sources are labelled as such.
- Marketing General Inc. — 2026 Membership Marketing Benchmarking Report highlights (median renewal 82%)Industry survey, US
- Marketing General Inc. — Benchmarking reports (2024: first-year renewal 75%; 2025: 45% grew, 49% raised dues)Industry survey, US
- MemberJungle — Five lessons from the 2025 Membership Marketing Benchmarking ReportVendor secondary, Australia — superseded edition
- Harvard Business Review — The value of keeping the right customers (5–25×)Practitioner article, US, 2014
- Office for National Statistics — Consumer price inflation, UK: August 2026 (CPI 3.1%, services 3.4%, core 2.6%)National statistics, UK
- Bank of England — Inflation and the 2% targetCentral bank, UK
- Fader and Hardie — How to project customer retention, Journal of Interactive Marketing, 2007Peer-reviewed, subscription data
- Ehrenberg-Bass Institute — Effective brand growth: acquisition or retention? (acquisition roughly twice as important)Research institute analysis
- HM Revenue & Customs — Clubs and associations’ VAT responsibilities (VAT Notice 701/5)Tax authority guidance, UK