Why Retaining Streaming Subscribers Is More Cost-Effective Than Acquiring New Ones
Subscriber churn is one of the most persistent and frustrating challenges for streaming services. You work hard to acquire users through marketing campaigns, trials, partnerships, and then just as quickly, they disappear. But here’s the thing: retaining your existing subscribers is almost always more cost-effective than acquiring new ones.
Before you invest more into lead gen and acquisition, ask yourself: What if improving your churn rate could give you better ROI, faster?
To help you benchmark your current strategy and identify areas for improvement, we created the 7-Step Streaming Churn Self-Assessment, a free checklist and infographic that covers all the key areas from engagement and payments to win-back campaigns. Download the checklist & infographic to see where you’re loosing subscribers, and how to fix it.
The Hidden Cost of Subscriber Churn
Did you know it can cost up to 5x more to acquire a new subscriber than to retain an existing one? But churn doesn’t just mean lost revenue; it increases your customer acquisition costs (CAC), impacts brand perception, and can stall your growth trajectory.
And while voluntary churn (users actively cancelling) is easy to spot, involuntary churn is often more damaging, as failed payments, expired cards, and billing errors silently erode your subscriber base. If you’re not actively addressing both, you leave money on the table.
Why Retention Is a Smarter Growth Strategy
Keeping subscribers engaged and loyal doesn’t just protect your revenue, it multiplies it:
- According to Bain & Company, improving retention by just 5% can increase profits by 25–95%.
- Happy, loyal users are more likely to refer others, reducing your acquisition costs
- Engaged subscribers are more open to upselling opportunities (premium plans, paid content, etc.)
Retention isn’t just a back-end KPI. It’s a front-line business growth lever. At Magine Pro we’ve seen simple card expiry reminders that auto alert users before their card expired help our customers see an 18% reduction in involuntary churn. Other retention-focused tools we offer within our platform have also driven strong results – see the infographic checklist for more..
What Causes Viewers to Churn?
Understanding churn is the first step toward solving it. Common culprits include:
- Content fatigue: Viewers run out of things to watch or don’t see enough fresh, personalised recommendations
- Poor user experience: Clunky navigation, slow loading, or inconsistent app performance
- Payment failure: Involuntary churn from expired or declined payment methods
- Low engagement: Users forget the service exists if there are no timely nudges, updates, or perks
Churn is often a combination of several small friction points that build up over time. The first step to solving it? Understanding what’s causing it.
Take the Self-Assessment
Use our 7-step checklist to evaluate how well your platform is set up to keep users around. From onboarding to billing to re-engagement, it’s designed to help you spot the gaps and take action fast.
Whether you’re an AVOD service, SVOD operator, or somewhere in between, this guide will help you pinpoint what’s working and what needs attention. Download here.
Want to learn more about Magine Pro’s retention tools and how our platform can support your growth? Speak to a member of our team to explore how we can help reduce churn and book a personalised demo.
CHECKLIST: How to Reduce Churn and Boost Retention for Your OTT Streaming Service
If you’re operating an OTT or streaming service, subscriber churn is one of your most critical metrics and one of your biggest threats to growth. But here’s the good news: much of it is preventable.
At Magine Pro, we’ve created a free 7-step retention checklist and infographic to help streaming platforms identify where they’re at risk of losing subscribers and take action to keep them engaged.
Why Retention Matters More Than Ever
Acquiring new subscribers is expensive, often up to 5x more than retaining an existing one. Yet many services still focus most of their energy on acquisition, while overlooking the low-hanging fruit: smarter retention.
Churn doesn’t just affect revenue. It impacts your customer lifetime value (LTV), marketing ROI, and future growth potential. For OTT and niche streaming services especially, even a small improvement in retention can translate into a major performance gain.
What You’ll Find in the Checklist
This guide gives you a simple, actionable way to assess your current retention efforts, backed by anonymised performance insights from real Magine Pro customers.
Here’s what you’ll get:
✅ A 7-step self-assessment to evaluate your OTT churn strategy
✅ Aggregated delta improvements across features like dunning flows, win-back campaigns, and card expiry reminders
✅ Practical retention tactics you can implement today
✅ Key benchmarks and tips to strengthen subscriber loyalty and reduce involuntary churn
Whether you’re losing users to failed payments, low engagement, or a lack of reactivation strategy, this checklist will help you understand where you’re losing revenue and how to get it back.
Start Reducing Churn Today
If you’re ready to stop churn before it impacts your bottom line, this guide is for you. Download the free checklist now and see how your strategy stacks up.
Interested in improving your service’s retention performance? Get in touch with a member of our team to discuss how you can reduce churn and grow subscriber value. With deep experience in the B2C streaming market, we’re here to help you build a stronger, more sustainable OTT business.
Contact us to learn more, or follow us on LinkedIn for the latest product updates, feature launches, and streaming insights.
The OTT Billing Blueprint: 5 Tactics to Boost Revenue and Retention
Mastering effective billing strategies is crucial to boost OTT revenue and retention. As consumer preferences and market dynamics continue to shift, OTT providers must adapt their billing approaches to meet evolving demands and maximise revenue potential.
One of the primary challenges facing OTT platforms is maintaining a balance between generating revenue and retaining subscribers. Effective billing strategies play a central role in achieving this balance by offering flexible options that cater to diverse user preferences while ensuring sustainable monetisation.
Here are our five top tips for mastering effective billing strategies for OTT platforms:
- Understand Your Audience: Analyse user data to gain insights into subscriber preferences and payment habits. Tailor your billing models to align with user expectations, driving higher conversion rates and reducing churn.
- Offer Multiple Payment Options: Provide a variety of payment methods to accommodate diverse user preferences and geographical considerations. A seamless and convenient payment experience enhances customer satisfaction and retention.
- Implement Dynamic Pricing Strategies: Leverage data analytics and machine learning algorithms to segment users into different pricing tiers based on behaviour and consumption patterns. Offer personalised pricing plans tailored to individual preferences and usage levels to increase subscription upgrades and maximise revenue.
- Maintain Transparent Billing Practices: Clearly communicate subscription fees, billing cycles, and any additional charges to build trust and confidence among subscribers. Offer flexible billing options such as monthly, yearly, or pay-per-view plans to empower users to choose the option that best suits their needs.
- Focus on Customer Experience: Prioritise a user-friendly billing experience by providing intuitive billing interfaces, easy-to-understand billing statements, and responsive customer support. Enhancing the overall customer experience fosters satisfaction and loyalty, driving long-term success for your OTT platform.
Mastering effective billing strategies is essential for OTT platforms looking to thrive in today’s competitive landscape. By understanding your audience, offering multiple payment options, implementing dynamic pricing strategies, maintaining transparent billing practices, and focusing on customer experience, you can optimise revenue generation, reduce churn, and ensure long-term success.
Interested in diving deeper into billing strategies? Download our latest white paper, ‘The Profit Playbook,’ for valuable insights into strategies that reduce churn and ensure long-term revenue maximisation. Additionally, explore ‘The Essentials of OTT Monetisation,’ our e-guide that delves into the intricacies of subscription, transactional, and advertising models.
If you’d like to discuss monetisation models further or explore the capabilities of Magine Pro’s advanced billing engine, connect with our experienced team. Visit our blog for more resources and explore our entire collection of white papers available for download. Stay updated with the latest news, events, partnerships, and product announcements by subscribing to the Magine Pro e-newsletter.
Top 5 strategies to improve OTT subscriber retention
Subscriber retention is essential for any business, but especially in OTT, given the choice of services and the propensity of viewers to regularly change or alternate subscriptions.
To grow sustainably, streaming service operators need to focus on converting new customers and retaining existing ones. Fortunately, there are several ways to keep your subscribers happy and engaged, such as offering exclusive content, early access to new features or releases, personalised recommendations, and customer service that goes above and beyond. By implementing a subscriber retention strategy, you can make sure your business grows sustainably for years to come.
With that in mind, we’ve put together our top five strategies to improve subscriber retention:
1. Customer feedback loop
It’s essential to create a space where customers feel heard and their concerns are taken seriously – even if you can’t always immediately resolve the issues they’re experiencing. All feedback is valuable, and negative feedback can be especially useful in identifying areas that need improvement. Ignoring customer feedback or brushing it off will only lead to frustration and eventual retention. Create a strong customer service and retention strategy to ensure your customers always feel like their voices are heard and valued.
2. Leverage your data
The cost of customer acquisition is high, so it’s important to keep your existing customers engaged and coming back for more. And one of the best ways to do that is to understand their viewing habits and cater content around their interests. Fortunately, with today’s data-driven insights, tracking customer behaviour and developing targeted campaigns that resonate with your audience is easier than ever. Leverage your data and gets to know your customers; you can build specific content categories around their interests and personalise comms for select groups to highlight what’s available.
3. Regular and engaging communication
Keep your subscribers engaged and interested in your content to keep them coming back for more. A well-considered communication strategy is essential for achieving this. You can personalise your communication based on data you know about your subscribers, such as their favourite actors or genres, and highlight up-and-coming releases that they might be interested in. Stay top of their minds with regular outreach that is engaging, informative and on brand for your business.
4. Reward loyalty
It costs much less to keep a customer than to acquire a new one, so rewarding loyalty makes good economic sense. There are a number of ways to show appreciation for loyal customers, such as offering discounts, access to exclusive content early or for free, or even a personalised thank-you email. Whatever the method, the goal should be to personalise the user experience as much as possible. After all, happy customers who feel valued and appreciate your brand values are more likely to stick around.
5. Continue to educate
At Magine Pro, we believe customer education should continue long after conversion and onboarding. Continuing to educate customers throughout their journey with your brand is essential. Build educational campaigns around your streaming service, highlighting valuable features such as building Watchlists, Continue Watching, etc. By helping users make the most of their subscriptions, you’re more likely to keep them loyal and engaged. In addition, these campaigns can help to create a more positive customer experience, which is essential for driving long-term growth.
Want to learn more ways to increase subscriber retention and engagement for your streaming service? Our white paper ‘OTT Discovery: How to stand out amongst the crowd‘ features some great insights. You can also check our blog for more practical advice.
If you’re interested in learning more about our flexible OTT platform, our partners, and how we can help you build and launch a successful OTT business, get in touch with us today.