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Hi everyone!
I don't know about you, but I really struggled to get work done this week. When the weather is this beautiful and the trees are this golden, I honestly think deadlines shouldn't exist, so we can all just walk around and enjoy it.
But guess what?
Tomorrow the temperature drops to 5°C, the freeze is coming, and apparently, all this fairytale turns into a pumpkin. I'm writing this issue sitting on my balcony to enjoy the last bits of this season before it disappoints the hell out of me tomorrow.
Would I love fall to be gorgeous and gold forever? You bet.
But life is chaotic and sometimes we need to adjust. And this chaos happens not only to you but to your users as well.
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Steal of the week
This is one of my favorite retention tactics that's used by many products, but let's look at Netflix as the prime example.
When you want to cancel your subscription, they also offer you an alternative option — you can pause it. Fair and square, you won't be charged for a month, but the subscription will automatically renew later if you don't cancel it yourself.
Why do I think it's great? Because life changes, and at some point, people might lose interest in your product or lose the need for it. Not forever — just for some time.
But if they cancel, thinking they'll renew it in the future — guess what, they probably won't, or it will take them way more time to do so, and they will ghost.
Netflix and many other products do this not as a trick, but as a fair option: you can cancel, or you can keep everything you have and simply remove the payment burden for the next month. It often works to retain users in the following cases:
When I don't use the product often enough (but still do)
When the product will be useless to me for the next X months (like VPN services if you won't be in areas where content is blocked)
When I didn't have time to explore the product for some reason (but still intend to)
Psychology behind why it works
There are a few psychological principles working together here that make pausing so effective:
Omission bias (doing nothing feels safer)
Think about it: canceling feels like slamming a door. Pausing? That's just stepping outside for a bit. When you give people a "do less" option, they'll take it.
Loss aversion & the endowment effect (we hate giving up what's already ours)
Once you have something, losing it hurts more than never having it in the first place. You've built playlists, watched half a season, got your recommendations just right — canceling means losing all of that. A pause lets you keep your stuff without the guilt of paying for it.
Status-quo bias (change is hard, even when we want it)
People naturally want to keep things as they are. Canceling is a big change — it's final, it's dramatic. Pausing? That's basically keeping things the same, just without the payment.
Mistakes that make users ghost
For god's sake, don't do this:
That's a bit of hyperbole, but seriously, don't do this:
Offer pausing as the only option, and make the cancel option ridiculously difficult.
Tell people they're canceling when they're actually pausing.
Push it aggressively — remember, if I want to cancel, I will. If you keep me from doing it, I’ll ghost forever.
How to implement like a pro
Whenever you're thinking about adding a pause option to your subscription, here's my advice:
Make it equally visible to the cancellation option — don't hide it deep in some additional menu somewhere.
Be clear and transparent about the terms: how long will the pause last, when will I be charged, can I keep access to some parts of the product or not, can I cancel while on pause or not.
Make sure the communication flow is there: send me a heads-up when my subscription is coming back to life, what I missed, and what's the best way to start over.
If you forget everything, remember this:
Pausing isn't about tricking users into staying — it's about meeting them where they are when life gets chaotic.
