Comparison · facts checked 3 Nov 2026
Stripe retention rules vs a cancel flow
Stripe retention rules show one fixed offer, a discount or a lower plan, to portal cancellers who match the conditions you set, and the first matching branch wins. A cancel flow like Stayput chooses the offer for each subscriber from the reason and the words they typed, and can offer a pause. Rules fit when one offer per segment is enough.
How Stripe retention rules work
Rules live in Stripe's Customer Portal and replace the older retention coupon setting; you cannot use both. Each rule is a list of branches. A branch has conditions and one offer, and Stripe applies the first branch whose conditions all match.
- Conditions you can set: cancellation reason, months subscribed, total billing spend, subscription status (active, trialing, past due or paused), subscription metadata and customer metadata.
- Offers: a discount (a coupon, percent or fixed amount, usable once per customer per subscription) or a downgrade to a lower plan, which takes effect at the end of the period.
- Scope: cancellations made in the Stripe-hosted portal. A cancel button inside your own app is not covered.
- Reasons: eight preset choices, from too expensive to quality less than expected, plus an optional free-text box.
An example of three branches, in order: reason is too expensive and subscribed fewer than 3 months gets a downgrade; reason is too expensive and total billing spend of $500 or more gets 25% off for 3 months; everything else gets no offer. Order matters, because the first match ends the search.
Side by side
| Stripe retention rules | Stayput | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it runs | Customer Portal cancellations | A hosted page |
| What picks the offer | Conditions you write: reason, tenure, spend, status, metadata | The AI reads the reason and the subscriber's own words, inside limits (largest discount, longest pause, minimum tenure) |
| Offers | Discount or downgrade, one per branch | Pause, discount, downgrade or no offer, chosen per subscriber |
| Same reason, different people | Same offer, unless a condition splits them | Different offer and wording for each |
| Save metric | Accepted offer and still subscribed after 7 days | Every session logged with the reason a subscriber gave and what they chose |
| Cost | Set up in the portal you already use | Free in early access; pay per save is 20% of the first renewal a save produces |
Where rules are enough
If most cancellations give the same reason, a single offer for that reason works, and the rule costs you an afternoon, rules are the right tool. They are also the right place to start when you have too few cancellations to learn anything from: set one branch, read the reasons for a month, then decide whether more is worth it.
Where a flow adds something
“Too expensive” hides at least three situations: the price is too high for the value, cash is tight this quarter, or the person barely uses the product. A discount suits the first, a pause suits the second, and neither suits the third. Rules can split on tenure or spend, but not on what the subscriber wrote in the box.
Pause is the other gap. Stripe added a pause flow to the portal in API version 2026-10-28.endive as a separate setting; it is not an offer a retention rule can hand out for a given reason. Pausing through the API (pause_collection) keeps the subscription active and is a different mechanism from Pause subscriptions, which stops service delivery and invoices.
Stripe's performance view now groups written cancellation comments into themes using AI. That helps you read what people said; the rules themselves still decide only from the conditions listed above.
Try the difference
The sample cancel session lets you play a subscriber and type your own reason. Compare what comes back with what your branches would have shown. For what to measure in either setup, read what counts as a save.
Type a reason a rule cannot read
Play a subscriber in a sample cancel session. Write your own reason and see the pause, discount or downgrade Stayput would pick, and the Stripe change behind it.
90 seconds, no sign-up. You play the subscriber; the AI answers, and “Cancel anyway” is always one click away.