Marketplaces and platforms have to solve churn on two sides at once.
Marketplace and platform businesses face a version of churn most SaaS companies don’t: losing either side of the network can quietly damage the other. A drop in supply-side engagement can make the product less valuable to demand-side users, and vice versa — long before it shows up as a churn number on either side.
Where we typically find the leaks
- Liquidity problems mistaken for product problems. Users can churn simply because the marketplace didn’t have enough of the other side active in their segment or region — not because of anything wrong with the product itself.
- Early-stage supply or demand drop-off. New participants who don’t get a successful match or transaction quickly often disengage before the network has a chance to prove its value to them.
- Take-rate sensitivity. Fee structures that feel reasonable in aggregate can quietly push out your highest-value, most price-sensitive participants on one side.
- Disintermediation risk. Once trust is established between two parties, some marketplaces see participants move transactions off-platform — a form of churn that doesn’t always show up as a formal cancellation.
What we help with
For marketplace and platform businesses, we analyze churn separately on each side of the network and look at how they interact, assess whether early drop-off is a liquidity issue or a product issue, and help identify where pricing, matching, or trust mechanisms are quietly costing you engaged participants.