- Most subscription brands are missing three things: flow depth, proper subscriber segments, and a campaign series for subscribers.
- The pre-charge reminder is the most important email you send. Treat it as a retention email, not a notice.
- Give subscribers skip, swap and pause before they ever see cancel.
- Keep order and charge confirmations in your subscription app. Use Klaviyo for the emails that build the relationship.
- Subscribers need their own segment and their own campaigns, or they go months with nothing but receipts.
What do most subscription brands get wrong in email?
Three things, and they're connected.
- Not enough flow depth. A welcome email and a cancellation confirmation isn't a subscriber journey. There's a long stretch between charge one and charge six where nothing happens.
- Subscribers aren't segmented properly. They get the same campaigns as one-time buyers and people who've never ordered, including discount offers that make their subscription look like a bad deal.
- No campaign series for subscribers. So the only emails they get are transactional. Weeks go by with nothing that reminds them why they subscribed.
Fix those three and most of the "why are people canceling" problem gets smaller.
How do Klaviyo and your subscription app work together?
Your subscription app runs the subscription. Klaviyo runs the conversation.
Taking Recharge as the example: per Recharge's help center, Recharge sends customer and order data to Klaviyo and stores it at the customer level, so you can build flows and campaigns around it. Flows use Recharge events as triggers. Campaigns use Recharge's custom properties to build segments.
The events Recharge sends include:
- Subscription started on ReCharge (the trigger Recharge suggests for welcoming new subscribers)
- Order upcoming on ReCharge (sent three days before the charge by default)
- Subscription paused on ReCharge, Subscription SKU swapped on Recharge and Subscription next charge date changed on Recharge
- Subscription cancelled on ReCharge and Recharge subscription reactivated
Recharge also offers ready-made flows for Klaviyo: a New Subscriber Welcome, an Upcoming Order Reminder and a Subscriber Win Back. And if you're still on the old Klaviyo-built Recharge integration, Recharge says you need to upgrade to the newer one built by Recharge.
One thing I don't do: send subscription confirmations as transactional emails from Klaviyo. Those come from the subscription software, and I keep them separate. Recharge notes that if you do want Klaviyo to send them, you have to ask Klaviyo support to set those emails as transactional and turn off the matching Recharge notifications so customers don't get duplicates. More on that in Klaviyo transactional emails.
What should go in a subscriber welcome series?
The first 30 days decide whether someone stays for charge two. Your welcome series should make a new subscriber feel cared for and guided.
That means:
- Help them get set up properly. How to use the product, what to expect from the first box, when the next one comes.
- Show them they're in control. Point out skip, swap and pause early, before they need them. People who know they can adjust are less likely to cancel to get out of a shipment they don't need yet.
- Keep it separate from the receipt. The confirmation comes from your subscription app. The welcome series is a helpful content brief that makes sure they're set up.
It works. A health and wellness supplement brand I worked with saw its repeat rate go up more than threefold with a new-subscriber welcome series. I go through the full build in subscription welcome email.
Why is the "your order is coming up" email so important?
Because it's the last email before money changes hands, and the person reading it is deciding whether to let the charge go through.
A subscription wellness brand I work with sends a "your order is coming up" reminder before each charge. In one month it made $47,321, which was 74% of all the brand's flow revenue. You're not running a sale. You're reminding people what's on the way.
Across 4 consumable brands I work with, replenishment flows earned about $2.23 per person, roughly 28x the best campaign. Only 2 of those 4 had one built. If your product runs out, this is the flow to build before anything else. See Klaviyo replenishment flow.
What I'd put in it:
- What's coming and when it ships.
- A way to swap to a different flavor or product, or add something to this order.
- Skip and pause links, right there, so they adjust instead of cancel.
Recharge's Order upcoming event is sent three days before the charge by default, and Recharge says upcoming charge events go out between 1 and 4 PM Eastern. You can change the send window in Recharge's settings.
How do you keep subscribers from canceling?
Give them skip, swap or pause instead of canceling. Most people who cancel don't hate the product. They have too much of it, they want something different, or they're going away for a month.
- Skip for "I have too much right now."
- Swap for "I'm bored of this flavor."
- Pause for "I'm traveling" or "money's tight this month."
Show those options in the welcome series, in the pre-charge reminder, and anywhere a subscriber manages their account. Then use the events: a subscriber who pauses or skips twice in a row is telling you something, and a short check-in can catch it before they cancel. The full set of churn emails is in subscription churn emails.
How should you segment subscribers in Klaviyo?
At minimum, split your list into:
- Active subscribers
- Paused subscribers
- Cancelled subscribers
- One-time customers who never subscribed
- Non-customers
Recharge's custom properties are what make these segments possible in Klaviyo. Once they exist, two rules follow. First, keep active subscribers out of discount campaigns built to get first orders, so their subscription never looks like the worse deal. Second, give subscribers their own campaign series: what's new, how other subscribers use the product, early access to new flavors, a thank-you at milestones. That's the "campaign series for subscribers" most brands don't have.
One-time customers are your best subscription prospects. They already like the product. Your post-purchase flow is the natural place to show them what subscribing saves them.
Why does email matter more for subscription brands when growth slows?
Because your subscribers are still there when new customers aren't.
A subscription wellness brand I work with had a rough April: store revenue fell 37% month over month and new customers dropped from 1,657 to 223. Email's share of revenue went from 41% to 53%. Email didn't suddenly get better. The subscriber base and the list kept paying while acquisition dried up. Ads are rented. Your list is owned. More on reading that number in what percentage of revenue should come from email.
FAQ
What emails should a subscription brand send?
A subscriber welcome series, a reminder before every charge, skip/swap/pause prompts, a winback for cancelled subscribers, and a regular campaign series just for subscribers. Order and charge confirmations usually come from your subscription app.
Should subscription confirmation emails come from Klaviyo or Recharge?
I keep them in the subscription app. If you move them to Klaviyo, Recharge says to have Klaviyo support set those emails as transactional and turn off the matching Recharge notifications to avoid duplicates.
When should the upcoming order email go out?
Recharge's Order upcoming event fires three days before the charge by default. That gives subscribers time to skip, swap or add to the order before they're charged.
How do I reduce subscription churn with email?
Start with the first 30 days and the pre-charge reminder. Make skip, swap and pause easy to find before cancel. Then give subscribers campaigns of their own so the only emails they get aren't receipts.
Does Recharge integrate with Klaviyo?
Yes. Recharge sends customer and order data to Klaviyo, including events like Subscription started, Order upcoming, Subscription paused and Subscription cancelled, which you can use to trigger flows.
Founder of Bardown Digital, a Chicago-based Klaviyo email and retention agency for Shopify brands. He's worked with brands doing $500K to $100M a year, with $100M+ in email-attributed revenue across them.