ClassPass has the best cancellation flow I've seen lately
What most teams get wrong about trials, and the cancellation flow that actually worked on me.
I can count on one hand the number of good cancellation flows I’ve seen.
And yet, for most products with subscriptions or trials, cancellation is a core part of the user journey. Not just because people leave, but because many of them leave immediately. Often within minutes of taking out a trial.
It’s muscle memory at this point. You subscribe, then cancel straight away so you don’t forget. Sometimes you don’t even try the product, because you get distracted whilst cancelling. That flow is built into our brains now.
And this moment, this reflexive behaviour, is one of the only times you actually have someone’s attention at the very time they’re deciding what your product is worth.
That makes it incredibly valuable. And incredibly underused.
One of the best examples I’ve seen lately is Flo. As soon as you start your trial, they interrupt the flow with a personalised offer: 30% off, forever. Not after you cancel. Not in a win-back email. Immediately. Because they know that most cancellations happen right then. They’ve now monetised 25%+ of their US audience, so something is definitely working for them.
In my RevenueCat article last year (How to win back lost customers), I talked about how win-backs don’t begin weeks or months after churn; they start right at the beginning. And this is the perfect example.
The thing is, most teams I’ve worked with haven’t treated cancellation this way.
They obsess over onboarding. They fight about the paywall. They run 18 versions of a headline test just to improve trial starts by 0.2%.
But when it comes to cancellation?
If they’re lucky, they slap a sad face emoji on a page, maybe ask for a reason (that no one ever reads), and let users quietly disappear. They don’t try to learn from it. They don’t test it. They don’t really think about it at all.
That’s a mistake.
Because over the last few years, I’ve seen firsthand how small changes in the cancellation flow can reduce churn, improve return rates, and (maybe most importantly) give your product team an early warning system for everything from pricing to UX.
Here’s one that nailed it in a completely different way.
ClassPass: losing out when you cancel
How credits (and a checkbox) stopped me from bailing
A few weeks ago, I tried out ClassPass for the first time. I'd been putting off taking out my 2-week free trial because I’m never stationary for long enough, but the planets aligned and my friend invited me to go to a reformer pilates class together (my first).
I took out the trial and was granted 72 credits. You can use these credits for classes: yoga, gym, capoeira, you name it.
Of course, like any normal person, as soon as I took out the trial, I went to cancel. I knew I shouldn’t risk an auto-renew when I’d be going away again so soon.
That’s when the persuasion began.
First, they offered me 20% off next month. Then, when I didn’t bite, they bumped it to 20% off the next three. And only after that came the real cost: cancel now, and your credits disappear immediately.
It’s a slow build, from reward to risk. The longer you hover, the more they reveal. It’s thoughtful, not aggressive. And it mirrors exactly how people behave when they’re unsure: they hesitate.
And then, before confirming, you’re asked to tick a box acknowledging the loss. A small moment of friction, just enough to break the autopilot.
That pause matters.
It’s the kind of flow that quietly layers behavioural design. First, it leans on loss aversion: we hate giving something up more than we enjoy gaining. Then it reinforces the same message again, just before you commit, a soft use of the mere exposure effect. What starts as a nudge begins to feel meaningful.
None of it feels heavy-handed. But together, it’s enough to make you stop, think, and (even in my case) keep the trial active and actually use it (yes, I went to a capoeira class).
It didn’t lock me in.
It didn’t rely on guilt.
It just gave me a reason to try. And that’s the part most teams miss.
Because if you can get someone to start (to show up once, to feel that it might be worth it) then everything else gets easier. Retention, referrals, conversion... they all start with that first step.
I’ve been thinking a lot about those moments lately, the ones that make people stay, even just for a little longer.
If you’ve seen a cancellation flow that does that well, I’d love to see it. I’m always collecting the thoughtful ones.
I’ve been settling back into London this week after six months on the move, and honestly, writing this was the first time I’ve sat still long enough to properly think. About product, about behaviour, about what makes someone stay. It feels good to be home.
Thanks for reading.
More soon.
Have a great weekend.
Hannah