Measurement
Part of How to set subscription commerce measurement rules for board reporting
When to buy subscription commerce benchmark research
Subscription commerce benchmark research can support relative decisions. Compare indexes, check UK coverage and method, and weigh the quote against its value.
What to take away
- For pooled schemes, check how subscriber-level data are handled and assess the privacy implications before signing.
- Buy subscription commerce benchmark research when the decision is relative, such as setting a retention target or a price. Build it internally when the decision is absolute.
- Check the sample source, the fieldwork dates and the definition of a subscriber before any external figure reaches a board paper.
- Budget for the licence, the analyst time and the internal work of mapping external definitions onto your own.
When buying beats building
Your billing system already knows your churn, your average revenue per subscriber and your renewal curve. What it cannot tell you is whether those numbers are good. That gap is the only solid reason to buy external data.
Buy external benchmark data?
Does anyone ask compared with whom?
Buy benchmark data
Improve your dashboard instead
Internal reporting answers what happened. Benchmark data answers compared with whom. If nobody in the business asks the second question, keep the money and improve the dashboard instead.
Relative decisions need an outside reference point. Price positioning, retention targets and investor updates all change once you know the category range. Absolute decisions, such as whether one plan covers its own costs, do not.
If your own definitions are still unsettled, fix them first. The subscription commerce measurement and reporting guide sets out the reporting routine to have in place before you brief a data provider.
What benchmark research covers
Most UK benchmark products report a small set of measures: monthly churn, twelve-month retention, average order value, trial-to-paid conversion and revenue per subscriber. Category coverage is uneven, and grocery behaves nothing like business software.
Named examples to screen are Zuora's Subscription Economy Index and Baremetrics' Open Benchmarks. They are not interchangeable: Zuora's index tracks broad subscription-economy trends, while Baremetrics' benchmarks are aimed at SaaS metrics. Treat them as starting points, not proof of a UK consumer-subscription cut: ask whether the product covers UK grocery subscriptions or business software, and request the eligible sample size for each segment, its source and dates, definitions, licence and a written quote. Recurly and Chargebee also publish subscription research, but a published report is not automatically a licensable benchmark dataset.
Three benchmark methods compared
Survey panel
- Source of data
- Self-reported
- Typical bias
- Recall error
- Best for
- Attitudes
- Answer style
- Stated intent
Card-transaction panel
- Source of data
- Card spending
- Typical bias
- Coverage gaps
- Best for
- Spend levels
- Answer style
- Observed spend
Operator-submitted index
- Source of data
- Operator records
- Typical bias
- Self-selection
- Best for
- Category norms
- Answer style
- Reported metrics
Method matters more than the headline. A survey panel, a card-transaction panel and an operator-submitted index will give three different answers to the same question, so establish which one you are buying.
Definitions travel badly. One provider counts a paused subscriber as active, another counts it as churned. That single choice can move a retention figure by several points.
Published macroeconomic statistics from the Bank of England are a useful companion to commercial data, because they give a defensible base for assumptions about household spending when you model renewals.
Checking the method before you quote
Ask for the sample source, the sample size, the fieldwork window and the response rate. Two benchmarks can look identical in a sales deck while one rests on a few hundred replies and the other on tens of thousands.
Check the market and the currency. A figure blended across the UK, the United States and Germany will not map onto an England-only operation, and exchange rate movements can flatter a growth line.
Pooled benchmarking schemes usually mean sending subscriber records to a third party. Before you join one, test your lawful basis and your privacy notice against the ICO's UK GDPR guidance and resources.
An external benchmark cannot establish compliance with the Enterprise Act 2002 or replace legal review; judge the dataset on its sample, definitions and licence.
A short commissioning checklist
Work through these before you sign a data contract.
- Sample source, sample size and fieldwork dates.
- The provider's definitions of a subscriber, a churn event and an active plan.
- Whether the cut is UK-only or blended across several markets.
- Category splits, not just a sector average.
- What the licence allows you to publish, and to whom.
Common questions
Use these questions to test whether external context can change a decision, what the quote includes and how it compares with internal reporting.
How much should we budget?
There is no published price list, so treat any figure as illustrative. The £400 a month example is not a market rate; bespoke cuts may cost more, and you should obtain an itemised quote for the licence, analyst time, implementation and renewal terms. Buy only when the expected value of a decision informed by the benchmark exceeds its full cost; if you cannot name that decision and its likely value, improve internal reporting instead. Ask about the renewal uplift before signing.
Can benchmark data replace our own reporting?
No. External data supplies context, while your billing records stay the source of truth on your own churn and revenue. If you have not settled which internal numbers to track, the Core subscription commerce metrics guide explains how each one is calculated.
How often should figures be refreshed?
Most vendors update quarterly or annually, which is slower than your own reporting cycle. Refresh the external comparison when you reset targets or budgets, not every month.
What if the definitions do not match ours?
Publish the external figure with its definition beside your own number and explain the gap in one line. Recasting your data to fit another company's definition usually hides more than it reveals.
