Prompt · Re-engagement
Email after someone cancels a subscription
Learn why they left. Winning them back is not this email's job.
- Email type
- Re-engagement
- Business
- SaaS
- Tone
- Professional
- Length
- 80-120 words
The re-engagement email prompt
Write a plain-text email from [SENDER] to someone who has just cancelled their [PRODUCT] subscription. Words only — no HTML, no layout notes. The cancellation has already gone through. This email does not try to reverse it. Rules: - 80 to 120 words. Calm, short, no theatre. - Confirm the cancellation in the first line, plainly, with no attempt to make them feel it. - Say what happens to their data: [WHAT HAPPENS TO THEIR DATA]. This is the most useful thing in the email and most cancellation emails leave it out. - Ask exactly one question about why they left, and make it answerable in a sentence. No survey, no rating scale, no link to a form. - Do not offer a discount to stay. Do not offer a pause. Do not mention a feature that is coming. They have decided, and arguing with the decision is what makes people tell other people about it. - One line saying the door is open, phrased so it costs them nothing to ignore. - Never invent a number, statistic or customer count. Where a figure belongs and I have not supplied it, leave [XX]. - No exclamation marks. No emoji. Sentence case. Write a subject line under 40 characters that confirms rather than pleads. Return subject, body, sign-off.
What to fill in first
[PRODUCT]- What they were paying for.
[WHAT HAPPENS TO THEIR DATA]- The real answer. How long it is kept, how to export it, when it goes. People need this more than they need an offer.
[SENDER]- A person, ideally the founder. A cancellation email from a no-reply address is the last impression you leave.
[XX]- Leave as written. The placeholder for a figure you supply, never one the model supplies.
When to send it
Immediately on cancellation, and never as part of a retention sequence. The retention attempt belongs before the cancel button, in the product; once it has been pressed, an email that argues reads as a company that does not listen, and that is the version people describe to their peers.
What to change first
[WHAT HAPPENS TO THEIR DATA]. It is the question every cancelling customer actually has and the one
most cancellation emails answer nowhere. Being straight about the retention window and the export
path is the last impression you get to leave, and it costs nothing — which is exactly why doing it
well is unusual enough to be remembered.
What good output looks like
Subject: Your [PRODUCT] account is closed
Your subscription is cancelled and you will not be charged again.
Your data stays on our servers for 90 days in case you come back. You can export everything from the account page until then, after which it is deleted properly rather than archived.
If you have a minute: what were you trying to do that we made hard? One sentence is plenty, and it comes straight to me.
If you ever want the account back, it is here and nothing needs rebuilding.
— [SENDER]
The prompt writes the words. Bring them here and the studio builds the campaign — branded, dark-mode safe, and ready to import.
Generate your ownIn the studio
A model writes copy. It does not write email.
Production HTML that survives Outlook, dark mode and a Gmail clip is a different job from writing the words. Describe the send once and export it to Mailchimp, Klaviyo, ActiveCampaign or MailerLite.