How To Find Out WHY People Stop Paying For Your Substack
It's not because your newsletter sucks.
Of course, nobody wants UNsubscribers, however, in the land of newslettering, it's inevitable. So, today I’m sharing a super simple way for you to figure out why your readers have cancelled their paid subscriptions.
This week’s tidbit is pretty short, but it might also be a delightful exercise for you—it was for me!
Remember a while back when I taught you about Paid Subscriber Notes and how uplifting they are? Well, today, I’ll show you where to find your UNsubscriber notes. Trust me; they aren’t all bad!
The majority of people don’t stop paying because your newsletter sucks (believe it or not)
If you go to your Dashboard » Stats » Unsubscribes, you’ll find a list of everyone who has stopped their paid subscription to your newsletter. But not everyone ducks and runs and ghosts you. Plenty of them leave notes explaining why.
Here’s where to find unsubscriber notes:
To protect the privacy of my subscribers, I haven’t shown my list. However, I would like to share with you some of the notes they left when they gave up their paid status.
I don’t know about you, but I LOVE that these readers took the time to share their reasons for stopping payment. I understand that subscriptions can pile up and that they might want to spread their support elsewhere or even show temporary gratitude.
I appreciate these notes so much.
Also, people can unsubscribe without leaving a personal note, but they can still choose one of Substack’s default reasons. This information is valuable as well. I can see that some have indicated TIME as a factor, some unsub before their annual auto-renew kicks in, and some just plain don’t want to spend the money anymore.
ALL TOTALLY VALID!!
So…if you’re like me and you enjoy learning about your subscribers’ behaviours, go check out your UNsubscriber notes! They might be more pleasant than you think 😊
In case you missed this GAME CHANGER last week….
I like that when someone lets me know that it's because of financial reasons, that I have the opportunity to ask myself if it would feel aligned to offer this person a comp subscription. I love that Substack has this feature! I just wish that it was easier to choose the exact amount of time we're desiring to comp someone.
I think it’s probable/possible that some people subscribe to a Substack with the upfront intention of it being only for a limited time simply because they would like to financially support that writer but have other writers they would like to support as well. I think Substack should have a tip button to facilitate that mindset.
Second theory is some readers are pragmatic in the same way they are with streaming video. Pay for a month or two, watch everything you’re interested in and then cancel. And then come back again later when the archive is built up again.