How to calculate your repeat purchase rate (and what to do with it)
By Toby Dames. Published 5 November 2026.
The formula
Repeat purchase rate = customers with 2 or more orders ÷ all customers who ordered in the period.
Say you look at the last 24 months. 10,000 customers placed an order. 2,500 of them placed two or more. Your repeat purchase rate is 2,500 ÷ 10,000 = 25%.
You can pull this from a Shopify customer export, your email platform, or a sales report grouped by customer.
Four traps that distort it
- Counting orders instead of customers. One customer who orders five times is one repeat customer, not five.
- Mixing time windows. A customer who bought last month has not had time to come back. Use a fixed window, or compare cohorts that are the same age.
- Merging duplicate customers. The same person checking out as a guest and with an account looks like two people. That makes your rate look worse than it is.
- Ignoring your product's natural cycle. A skincare brand and a sofa maker should not expect the same rate. Compare yourself with your own history first.
What a gap is worth
Here is the arithmetic. 10,000 customers, an average order of $85 and a 25% repeat rate. If you lifted the rate by 5 percentage points, 500 more customers would order again. At $85 that is $42,500 in extra revenue.
Revenue is not profit. Multiply by your gross margin after discounts and shipping, then subtract what it cost to win them back. That margin-adjusted figure is the one to plan around. The calculator on our home page does this sum with your own numbers.
Two numbers that make it more useful
Time to second order. Find the median number of days between a first and second order. It tells you when to send your win-back message, and when a customer is overdue.
Second-order rate by monthly cohort. Group customers by the month of their first order and see what share ordered again. If recent cohorts do worse than older ones, something has changed in what you sell, who you attract or how you follow up.
Questions
What is a good repeat purchase rate for e-commerce?
It depends heavily on what you sell. Consumables that run out, such as skincare, coffee or pet food, naturally repeat more than furniture. The most useful benchmark is your own rate over time, and by cohort. Published benchmarks differ by source and category, so treat them as a rough guide only.
Is repeat purchase rate the same as customer retention rate?
No. Retention rate usually measures how many customers from the start of a period are still buying at the end of it. Repeat purchase rate measures how many have bought more than once. Both are useful. Repeat purchase rate is easier to calculate from order data.
How often should I measure it?
Monthly, on a rolling 12 or 24 months, plus a cohort view. Weekly figures are too noisy for most brands.
Want this worked out on your own data?
The free Profit Leak Detector takes a couple of minutes. Or book 30 minutes and we will look at your numbers together.