I just wrapped an episode of the Shopify1Percent Podcast with Tony Sternberg, the CEO and co-founder of ProsperStack. If you run subscriptions on Shopify, grab a coffee and buckle in because what we unpacked might be the biggest retention unlock hiding in plain sight.

Here is the uncomfortable truth. Most Shopify brands are bleeding revenue from a single place. the cancel button. And most of that loss is completely preventable.

According to ProsperStack’s data, up to 70 percent of customers who click cancel are not actually trying to leave your brand. They’re confused, overwhelmed, on the wrong product, or simply drowning in too much inventory. When brands intervene correctly with the right message, offer, or alternative, they consistently save 25 to 40 percent of those customers. That is not a guess. Those are real numbers pulled across hundreds of Shopify brands.

I will say it plainly. In 2025, focusing only on acquisition and ignoring cancellation flows is business malpractice.

Below is a breakdown of some of the biggest insights from the conversation and how you can use them to improve retention, grow LTV, and strengthen your Shopify business starting today.

1. The Cancel Click Is Not the End. It Is the Beginning.

Tony came from the SaaS world and lived the pain of churn long before he built ProsperStack. When his previous company hit scale, they realized they had almost no idea why customers were cancelling. Sound familiar?

Most Shopify brands treat cancellation as a dead end. But in reality, it is one of the most valuable and actionable touchpoints in the entire lifecycle.

Here is why.

• 60 percent or more of cancellations are caused by solvable issues.
  Too much product. cadence mismatch. wrong variant. temporary budget issue. confusion.

• Only 18 percent of customers cancel because they genuinely no longer want the product.

Meaning the majority of churn is preventable if you present the right solution at the right moment.

That single click is not rejection. It is a request for help.

2. Your Cancellation Flow Is Costing You More Than Your Facebook Ads

Shopify merchants are notorious for obsessing over ads, acquisition, and UGC strategies. Meanwhile, they ignore the one page that is quietly wiping out 20 to 40 percent of their recurring revenue every month.

And it gets worse.

SaaS benchmarks show that acquisition costs have increased 60 to 90 percent over the last three years. Ecommerce is following the same trend. When CAC increases and retention stays the same, your economics collapse.

Let me put it in Shopify terms.

Saving 25 to 40 percent of cancellations is the same as increasing your subscription signups by 25 to 40 percent, without spending a dollar on acquisition.

This is why Tony calls cancellation flows “the highest leverage page on your Shopify store.”

3. What a Great Cancellation Flow Actually Looks Like

After studying thousands of subscription brands, Tony shared what separates the highest performing flows from everyone else.

A high converting cancel flow has:

1. Brand Cohesion

It should look like your Shopify store, not a generic modal built in 2013.

2. Segmented Cancellation Reasons

You need data-driven reason lists, not guesswork.
And yes, new reasons will appear over time. Shopify customers evolve. Your list should too.

3. Personalized Response Paths

Every reason triggers a different flow.
Too much product? Offer a skip or cadence change.
Wrong flavor? Offer a swap.
Budget issue? Offer a pause.
Burnout? Remind them of the value they are getting.

4. Relevant Offers

ProsperStack sees skips and reschedules outperform discounts in DTC subscriptions.
Discounts work too, but train your customers improperly if used carelessly.

5. Testing and Optimization

This is the secret weapon.
Most brands dramatically overpay in discounts because they never test.

ProsperStack has cases where a brand dropped from an 80 percent discount to a 35 percent discount while increasing saves.

And AI generated offer text alone increases save rates up to 7 percent.

Small copy changes. Big revenue gains.

4. The Peak End Rule. Why Your Cancellation Experience Matters More Than You Think

Tony shared a psychological principle that every Shopify merchant should understand: The Peak End Rule.

Customers judge a brand based on two moments.

• The peak of their experience

• And the end of the experience

If your cancellation process is slow, painful, or disrespectful, your customer will remember you for that, not the product they liked.

If your cancellation experience is helpful, empathetic, and respectful, you build goodwill and dramatically increase your odds of winning them back later.

A ruthless or confusing cancellation flow kills winbacks.
A clean one creates future loyalists.

5. The Wild Part. Winbacks Convert Better Than Acquisition

Winbacks are the dirty little secret of retention.

• The probability of selling to a past customer is 60 to 70 percent.

• The probability of selling to a new customer is 5 to 20 percent.

Translation. your cancelled customers are your warmest leads.

And ProsperStack’s winback engine plugs directly into Bold Subscriptions so that when someone cancels, you can:

• Email a targeted offer

• Drop them into a segmented nurture

• Automatically re-activate their subscription with one click

Tony shared brands seeing 40 to 50 percent winback rates over time.

That is ridiculous.

6. The Biggest Churn Problem Is Not Churn

This one hit hard.

Most Shopify brands don’t have a churn problem. They have:

• an onboarding problem

• an education problem

• a product usage problem

• a misaligned acquisition channel problem

Churn is the symptom.
Acquisition and onboarding create the disease.

When you fix acquisition, onboarding, and product education, churn improves naturally.

Cancellation flows are the safety net.
But the root cause is earlier in the customer lifecycle.

7. The ProsperStack + Bold Subscriptions Integration

This is the part I’m genuinely excited about.

ProsperStack now has a native integration with Bold Subscriptions. That means:

• No coding

• Automatic subscription updates

• Cleaner data

• Easier testing

• Real-time offer activation

If you run subscriptions on Shopify and you want the most effective cancellation engine tied directly into your subscription platform, you now have a turnkey option.

My Final Thought

If you’re a Shopify merchant running subscriptions, you cannot afford to treat cancellations as an afterthought.

Fixing your cancellation flow:

• saves real revenue fast

• increases LTV

• improves customer relationships

• and exposes acquisition issues you never knew you had

Retention is the new growth engine.
And Tony’s insights made it clearer than ever.

If you want the full breakdown, tools, live examples and more, join our upcoming webinar with ProsperStack. We are diving deep into real cancellation flows, how to structure offers, how to test, and how to stop the revenue leak once and for all: 

December 16th: https://bit.ly/stop-the-leak-dec-16