Codecademy · B2C · learn-to-code courses
When people cancel, offer a pause, a 3-month half-price deal, or support
10-20% drop in churn across a couple of companies
Workedcancellation-flow
What they did
Cancellation survey routes each reason to a save offer: 'too busy' -> pause the subscription (worked best at Codecademy since people learn to code in bursts); 'too expensive' -> temporary discount (same plan at 50% off for 3 months, then auto-return to full price) or a downgrade to a lower, hidden tier; 'negative experience' -> connect with customer support. On Stripe this needs custom logic in the payment system. Watch the share of users who take the discounts, since save tactics become widely known and get gamed.
What happened
Between a 10 and 20% drop in churn where the guest implemented it.
- Effort
- Implemented a couple of times across a couple of companies; custom billing logic
“I'd say the big three that I've seen work is pause, like discount, and kind of like connect with support. Pause works the best if it's a temporary habit. So we implemented this at Codecademy”
“so we'll keep you in the same plan structure for 3 months at 50% off and then we'll auto-readjust you back, or like we'll drop you down to a lower, like hidden tier of the product.”
“That said, when I've implemented this, I've seen between like a 10 and 20% drop in churn.”
Get tactics like this every Monday
New tactics from the week's founder interviews, each linked to where it was said.
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