DAX Retention Rate Measure

Expresses the percentage of last period's customers who also purchased in the current period.

Customers and RetentionAdvancedretention ratepercentagecustomers

DAX code

Retention Rate =
VAR CurrentCustomers = VALUES('Sales'[CustomerID])
VAR PriorCustomers = CALCULATETABLE(VALUES('Sales'[CustomerID]), SAMEPERIODLASTYEAR('Date'[Date]))
VAR RetainedCustomers = COUNTROWS(INTERSECT(PriorCustomers, CurrentCustomers))
RETURN
    DIVIDE(RetainedCustomers, COUNTROWS(PriorCustomers))

Notes

This is the complement of the Lost Customers measure; both use the same prior-period customer set.

Requirements

A marked Date table and a customer ID column on the fact table.

How to use this measure

In Power BI Desktop, select the table that should hold the measure and choose New measure on the ribbon.
Paste the code, then replace the placeholder table and column names with your own. The My table names fields above do this for you.
Run it through the DAX Formatter if you want it laid out in your team's style.

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More DAX resources

Browse all 175 measures in the Power BI DAX Measures Library, or search the library for something similar to Retention Rate.