# Customer Lifecycle The **customer lifecycle** is the model that classifies every customer by what stage they're in. Most B2B SaaS companies use 5 stages: 1. **Onboarding** — first 30–90 days 2. **Adoption** — using the product but not yet at full value 3. **Growth / value** — getting business outcomes; potential expansion 4. **Renewal** — within 90 days of contract end 5. **Advocacy** — referring others, in case studies Each stage has different goals, playbooks, and metrics. ## Why lifecycle staging matters Treating a Day-7 customer the same as a Day-300 customer wastes effort and confuses the customer. A lifecycle model lets CS playbooks be specific to where the customer is right now. ## How BlueHill helps BlueHill tags each customer record with a lifecycle stage. Status reports group accounts by stage. Different automations fire by stage (onboarding → daily nudges; renewal → forecast updates). Related: [Customer journey](/glossary/customer-journey) · [Renewal](/glossary/renewal) · [Advocacy](/glossary/advocacy)