Repeat Customer Rate
Repeat customer rate is the percentage of customers who have purchased or visited more than once. Formula: customers with 2+ purchases ÷ total customers × 100. A business with 500 customers, 180 of whom returned at least once, has a repeat customer rate of 36%.
What it tells you, and what it hides
Repeat rate is the simplest loyalty readout: lifetime, no time frame. Its weakness is exactly that timelessness: a customer who bought twice in 2019 and never again counts as “repeat” forever. Use it as a coarse health check and a headline for stakeholders, but never as an operational metric: it cannot tell you whether retention is improving, which cohorts struggle, or who needs attention this week.
Repeat rate vs retention rate
Retention rate fixes a period and asks who is still active, stricter, time-bound, and suitable for tracking change. Repeat rate asks only whether a second purchase ever happened. Rule of thumb: quote repeat rate to describe the base (“over a third of our clients have returned”), use retention rate to manage it. Appointment businesses usually need a third instrument as well, return adherence against expected windows, because neither timeless nor period metrics capture cadence.
Frequently asked questions
What is repeat customer rate?
The percentage of customers who have purchased or visited more than once: customers with two or more purchases divided by total customers, times 100.
Is repeat customer rate the same as retention rate?
No. Repeat rate is timeless: a second purchase years ago still counts. Retention rate fixes a period and asks who is still active, which makes it stricter and suitable for tracking whether retention is improving.