If you have ever launched a membership or subscription and watched people quietly disappear after a few months, you are not alone. Most businesses assume churn is normal. Stu McLaren calls that out directly.
Stu McLaren is a pioneer in the membership and recurring revenue space. He has worked with over 20,000 creators and entrepreneurs to launch, grow, and scale membership-based businesses across nearly every industry imaginable. He is the founder of Membership.io, a platform built to help businesses create predictable, scalable recurring revenue. He is also the author of Predictable Profits and the founder of Village Impact, a nonprofit that builds schools and expands access to education for underserved children in rural Kenya.
On the Beyond A Million podcast, Stu breaks down why most memberships struggle with retention and what actually works when you design the experience intentionally. His message is simple but uncomfortable. Membership retention does not happen by accident.
Membership Retention Depends on Clear Rules and Fewer Decisions
One of the most overlooked drivers of long term membership retention is not software, content, or pricing. It is clarity. That starts with leadership.
Stu explains that growth only became sustainable for him when he stopped reacting to every opportunity and started operating from pre made decisions.
“In my life, I had to make rules. Otherwise, I would be pulled in 1,000,001 different directions,” Stu says
Instead of negotiating with himself in the moment, he built guardrails that forced better decisions. “You got to first get clear on your priorities. Number two, create the rules. And then that alleviates a lot of the decision-making,” he explains
For Stu, that clarity even showed up in personal constraints that protected what mattered most. “The rule that I put in place was that I’m never going to be away from Amy and the kids for more than four days a month,” he says
The same concept applies directly to membership retention. When businesses do not create clear paths and rules for members, customers are left guessing. Guessing leads to overwhelm. Overwhelm leads to churn.
Membership Retention Starts With Choosing the Right Model
Before you can fix membership retention, you have to make sure a membership actually makes sense for what you sell. Stu is very direct about this.
“There are really three indicators that I look for in a market that is a good fit for a membership,” he says
The first is whether you can solve something that takes time. “Number one is, can you solve an ongoing problem?” Stu asks
The second is whether you are helping someone improve over time. “Number two is, can you teach a skill?” he says, pointing out that mastery does not have a finish line
The third is convenience. “The third indicator I look for is like convenience. Can we make someone’s life easier?”
What matters most is that you do not need all three. “You don’t have to say yes to all three of those. Just one of those is the indicator to make it a great market for a membership,” Stu explains
When businesses ignore this step, they end up forcing a subscription into a model that does not naturally support retention. That is where churn becomes inevitable.
Why the First 30 Days Matter for Membership Retention
If there is one place businesses lose membership retention, it is onboarding. Stu does not sugarcoat this.
“You can triple the lifetime value of a customer in that first 30 days if they have a positive experience,” he says
That first month is where customers decide if staying feels worth it. Stu explains that creating a positive experience does not require more content. It requires better direction.
“A lot of times, a membership isn’t clear that this is a journey,” he says
This is why he emphasizes something he calls a success path. “It’s something that we call a success path, and it’s a journey. It’s like, how do you go from where you are to where you want to be,” Stu explains
Clarity builds confidence. Confidence builds momentum. Momentum is what keeps people paying.
Membership Retention Is About Relationships, Not Features
One of the most powerful retention lessons Stu shares has nothing to do with dashboards or deliverables. It is about connection.
“When people join a community, if you can just help them get connected and help them form one meaningful relationship, it can frame up the entire perspective that they have around the membership,” Stu says
He tells a story about his daughter starting a new school and immediately loving it, not because of the curriculum, but because she made one meaningful connection on day one. That same emotional anchor applies inside memberships.
“The whole framing that this was the best school ever had nothing to do with the school. It had everything to do with the fact that she made one meaningful relationship,” Stu explains
People stay where they feel seen.
Quick Wins Are the Secret Weapon for Membership Retention
Most businesses think wins have to be massive to matter. Stu says the opposite.
“We think it’s got to be a big win. It’s got to be like a home run,” he says. “No, it’s little wins. It’s just about progress”
Those small wins stack. They create momentum. They reassure customers they made the right decision.
“If they get a quick win in that first 30 days, it creates confidence and momentum that sets them up for long-term success,” Stu explains
That is why he urges business owners to audit their onboarding with fresh eyes. “Every friction point is a point in which you’re going to lose people,” he says
The fix is rarely more. It is almost always less.
Membership Retention Is Built, Not Hoped For
Stu’s core message is simple. Retention is not a mystery. It is a result of intentional design.
“We didn’t change the offer, we didn’t change the price, we didn’t even change the content. All we changed for them was the membership experience,” he explains when describing a client who cut churn in half within one month
Membership retention improves when the experience feels clear, supportive, and progress driven. When businesses stop hoping customers figure it out and start guiding them intentionally, everything changes.
As Stu puts it, “It does not take much to have a massive compounding difference”
If you want predictable recurring revenue, retention is the work. And the work starts on day one.
Want to hear Stu McLaren break this down in his own words? Listen to the full Beyond A Million episode where he dives deeper into recurring revenue, membership retention, and what actually drives long-term growth: https://beyondamillion.com/audio/stu-mclaren-recurring-revenue-model/
