Estimated annual leak · modeled range
$0a year
Modeled midpoint, prorated. Not a measured loss.
Subscription · margin leak estimator
How much is your Subscription marketing leaking?
Use your revenue, marketing spend and answers to explore a modeled annual opportunity range. Free, with no login or account access.
Use the results on your own, or choose a paid audit or a fit call. Both next steps are optional.
Free · No login · Nothing leaves your browser
Model reference: $51k/yr. Published cases: 7, lower median $51,000/yr. Separate voluntary churn, failed payments, billing and acquisition. A retained subscription requires a stated follow up period before future value can be treated as realized revenue.
Live reading · updates on every answer
Leak risk score
Appears after your first answer. Based on your answers, not on the dollars.
Pick an industry to sharpen the range.
Directional model output. Not a measured loss or promised recovery. Formula and rates are disclosed below.
Step 1 of 7 · Tell us about the Subscription business
Rough numbers are fine.
Tell us about the Subscription business
Three quick inputs set your baseline. Rough numbers are fine, and nothing leaves your browser.
Quick start
Industry
Advanced: blended ROAS and site conversion rate (optional)
Optional, and it stays in your browser. Either number narrows your range instead of widening it: the model stops guessing at your efficiency and uses yours.
Choice steps advance on click. Nothing leaves your browser.
In their words · 5 Subscription client statementsAll 60 client statements →
SUBSCRIPTION
$63k a year found in 6 days
Active users actually being billed: 93% → 99%
“Expansion lagged what we saw inside accounts. Victoria reconciled active users against billed seats: many customers used more seats than they paid for. Automated true ups now capture it, and nobody pushed back.”
VP of Finance · Subscription · B2B software
Written approvalUnder NDA6 days to findings
Victoria MillerSenior Auditor · signed this audit offSUBSCRIPTION
$57k a year found in 6 days
Annual discount vs the churn it prevents: 1.8× over → right sized
“We were discounting loyalty we already had. Victoria compared the annual discount against the churn it actually prevented: a large share of members taking it would have stayed anyway. We right sized it and kept the deep offer for real churn risk.”
VP of Growth · Subscription · Fitness
Written approvalUnder NDA6 days to findings
Victoria MillerSenior Auditor · signed this audit offSUBSCRIPTION
$52k a year found in 5 days
Involuntary churn from failed payments: 4.1% → 1.6%
“A slice of our churn was never churn. Victoria split voluntary from involuntary and found expired cards getting one token retry before we wrote the subscriber off. Smarter retries and a card updater cut involuntary churn from 4.1% to 1.6%.”
CFO · Subscription · Digital media
Written approvalUnder NDA5 days to findings
Victoria MillerSenior Auditor · signed this audit offSUBSCRIPTION
$47k a year found in 6 days
Would be pauses lost on the pause to cancel path: ~4 in 10 → ~1 in 10
“Pause was buried and cancel was one tap away. Victoria mapped the pause, skip and cancel journeys and about four in ten would be pauses ended as full cancellations. We rebuilt the flow and offer pause first inside the cancel journey now.”
Head of Retention · Subscription · Meal kit
Written approvalUnder NDA6 days to findings
Victoria MillerSenior Auditor · signed this audit offSUBSCRIPTION
$41k a year found in 6 days
Shipping margin on the monthly cohort: −4% → +8%
“A flat shipping tier felt fair. Victoria mapped shipping cost against cohort value and our most loyal subscribers were subsidizing the least loyal ones. Tiers now follow order frequency, so loyalty stops paying for churn.”
Head of Subscriber LTV · Subscription · Box
Written approvalUnder NDA6 days to findings
Victoria MillerSenior Auditor · signed this audit offThe calculator is free. An optional paid audit checks your account data and produces evidence for its findings.
What is the next step?
Keep your estimate, explore the case studies or request a paid audit. The calculator does not connect to your accounts. A fit call can help you assess whether an audit is appropriate.
Model assumptions and limitations
This calculator applies model assumptions to your inputs. Its range, comparison position and score are directional scenarios, not measured account losses, verified peer percentiles or a recovery promise. The industry reference amounts are model references, distinct from the lower medians of published case figures. Underlying calibration budgets and validation evidence are not published.
- Monthly marketing spend is multiplied by 12 and the selected industry rate band. Monthly revenue is multiplied by 12 and 0.84% to 1.63% for the second term. These two modeled terms are added, adjusted by your answers, and rounded.
- Higher spend changes the marketing term; higher revenue changes the pricing, margin and retention term. These terms may describe related economic effects, so their sum is a scenario for investigation, not additive proven savings.
- The comparison uses the marketing term only. Its reference is annual marketing spend multiplied by the middle point of the industry model curve. A position from 10 to 90 on that curve is not an observed peer percentile.
- The 0 to 100 score summarizes the selected answers. Category scores reflect allocated shares of the estimated midpoint, not independently measured health.
- Optional ROAS and conversion inputs scale the range against model reference values and narrow it by a fixed factor of 0.70 before rounding. A narrower interval does not establish greater statistical confidence.
- When spend exceeds half of revenue, a midpoint limit of 6% of annual revenue can activate. Rounding and minimum interval width still apply. This is a model safeguard, not an observed business limit.
Input and coefficient sensitivity are model behavior. Calibration periods, eligible budgets and validation errors are unavailable in the published cases.
Directional model estimates, not a diagnosis of your accounts. Nothing leaves your browser to produce this result.
Behind the Subscription estimate
What the model assumes for Subscription
The Subscription model reference is $51k a year. Among the five modeled categories, Subscription gives Retention & lifecycle a 15% heavier weight in the category split and a head start as the first area to investigate when your answers point two ways.
The 7 published Subscription cases are a separate statistic: a lower median annual highlight figure of $51,000, computed from the cases listed below, not from the model. The largest of them is Seat true ups were underbilled as accounts grew, +$63k a year, found in 6 days.
What the Subscription estimator asks
Every version of the calculator starts from monthly revenue and monthly marketing spend. Three of the seven questions then carry Subscription options, listed here as the wizard shows them. Each option still maps to the same five leak categories, which is what keeps a Subscription estimate comparable with any other.
Where does most of your marketing budget go?
The Subscription channel mix. The answer moves weight between wasted paid spend and attribution.
- Paid social: Meta, TikTok
- Influencers & creators
- Search & app store ads
- Referral & member get member
- Organic, content & CRM
- Honestly, I’m not sure
How do you mainly make money?
The Subscription revenue model. The answer moves weight between pricing and retention.
- Monthly / annual subscriptions
- Free trial → paid
- Tiers & add ons
- Physical subscription (box / replenishment)
- A mix
- Not sure / it varies
Where do you suspect you lose the most?
The Subscription vocabulary for the five categories. The answer orders the checklist; it never moves the score.
- Ad spend that never converts
- App & web tracking / attribution
- Signup & trial to paid conversion
- Plans, pricing & promo depth
- Churn & winback
- Not sure: that’s why I’m here
Tracking and the optional inputs
Subscription answers the tracking question on the web analytics scale, from a modeled, reconciled first party setup down to patchy or not sure.
Advanced, optional: a blended ROAS, placeholder 3.0, and a site conversion rate, placeholder 2.5%. Either one narrows the Subscription range instead of widening it.
Four Subscription leak patterns from the published cases
Each card names the cases it rests on; open one for its evidence. Together the cards cover all 7 published Subscription cases. The Subscription marketing audit page explains each pattern and shows the before and after of its largest case.
Billing
Revenue the billing never collected
2 of the 7 published cases · $52k to $63k a year
- Weak payment recovery was leaking revenue as involuntary churn, +$52k a year
- Seat true ups were underbilled as accounts grew, +$63k a year
Paid media
Acquisition and win backs counted as wins
2 of the 7 published cases · $33k to $51k a year
- Growth spend was outrunning retention, +$51k a year
- Winback campaigns were rebuying customers who’d have returned free, −$33k a year
Pricing
Discounts and tiers priced below cohort value
2 of the 7 published cases · $41k to $57k a year
- Annual plans were discounted below their retention value, +$57k a year
- Shipping tiers didn’t match cohort value, +$41k a year
Retention flows
Pause flows leaking to cancel
1 of the 7 published cases · $47k a year
What an audit checks after a Subscription estimate
- Failed payment retry, dunning and card updater coverage
- Pause, skip and cancel flow economics
- Win back incrementality against the natural return rate
- Cohort LTV against acquisition cost by channel
- Plan and pricing tier margin after discounts
The estimate points at a category; the audit tests these 5 Subscription checks against your own account data. Compare industries in the 2026 benchmark.
Why trust the estimate
A wasted ad spend calculator with explicit assumptions.
01
Industry model assumptions
The calculator uses industry rates and your inputs. Published case lower medians are shown separately so you can compare their definitions.
02
Understand the range
The interval describes a model scenario. It does not establish the percentage of comparable businesses that achieved that result.
03
The audit makes it real
An estimate can’t be acted on by itself. The audit names each leak, proves it with your data and hands you the fix. $10,000 to $50,000 of findings, or your money back.
Next step, optional
Turn estimates into evidence.
Fixed fee. 5 to 7 working days. $10,000 to $50,000 of findings, or your money back.
Questions about the Subscription estimator.
Is the estimator really free, and what’s the catch?
Yes. The Subscription calculator uses your inputs and the Subscription model assumptions, with no account access. You can keep the results or choose an optional paid audit or fit call.
Does the calculator need access to my ad or analytics accounts?
No. It runs entirely in your browser from a few situational inputs, with Subscription preselected as the industry. No logins and no account access, by design.
How accurate is the estimate?
It is a directional model using your inputs and Subscription industry assumptions. Its range and comparison position are not verified peer percentiles or measured account losses. The 7 published Subscription cases are a separate statistic, with a lower median annual highlight figure of $51,000 and a largest published case figure of $63,000 a year. An audit checks your own evidence.
What does the Subscription estimator ask that the general calculator does not?
Three of its seven questions carry Subscription options. Where the budget goes offers Paid social: Meta, TikTok, Influencers & creators, Search & app store ads, Referral & member get member and Organic, content & CRM. How you make money offers Monthly / annual subscriptions, Free trial → paid, Tiers & add ons, Physical subscription (box / replenishment) and A mix. Where you suspect the loss offers Ad spend that never converts, App & web tracking / attribution, Signup & trial to paid conversion, Plans, pricing & promo depth and Churn & winback. Each answer still maps to the same five leak categories, so a Subscription estimate is comparable with any other.
Why does the Subscription calculator ask for a blended ROAS?
It is optional. The Subscription version offers two advanced inputs, a blended ROAS with 3.0 as the placeholder reference and a site conversion rate with 2.5% as the placeholder. Either number narrows your Subscription range rather than widening it, because the model stops guessing at your efficiency and uses yours. Leave both empty and the range stays wider.
Subscription wasted ad spend calculator: model and case evidence
This calculator applies model assumptions to your inputs. Its range, comparison position and score are directional scenarios, not measured account losses, verified peer percentiles or a recovery promise. The industry reference amounts are model references, distinct from the lower medians of published case figures. Underlying calibration budgets and validation evidence are not published.
Separate voluntary churn, failed payments, billing and acquisition. A retained subscription requires a stated follow up period before future value can be treated as realized revenue.
Scroll horizontally to compare all columns on a narrow screen.
| Industry | Published cases | Model reference / year | Case lower median / year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Subscription | 7 | $51k | $51,000 |
The population is the 74 published case studies, with one selected highlight figure per case. It is not a representative sample of all SMBs or a total of every finding in each audit. A lower median is the middle value after sorting, using the lower of the two middle values for an even count. Published annual figures include different outcome types; they are not all collected cash, profit or recurring savings. Case publication dates do not establish common observation, implementation or recovery periods; use each case for its supported timing and outcome.