For SaaS (“Software as a Service”) companies, a customer renewal rate is the rate at which customers choose to renew their SaaS license with their existing vendor, and the “churn” rate is the rate at which existing customers leave (or “churn”) their existing SaaS software provider. High renewal rates suggest solid products and a strong customer support framework, while high churn rates indicate significant dissatisfaction among existing customers due to product quality, customer service, or a combination of factors. Leaving an existing software vendor is an expensive process for a government customer. Staff has to research, identify, secure funding for, implement, train staff on, and demonstrate ROI for an entirely new system. Staying with an existing provider is far easier, and that inertia is a very real driver in software purchasing decision. Therefore, for a customer to leave an existing software platform for another, they usually have to be experiencing a very high level of dissatisfaction. Also, customer churn is expensive for companies because it costs more money (in marketing, contracts, sales, and implementation) to acquire a new customer rather than retain an existing one. Therefore, a company with a higher churn rating is going to be diverting more of its revenue to acquiring new customers and less to product and customer service improvements.

MaintStar has consistently held at least a 97% customer renewal rate and industry-leading customer support ratings.