Cancel-Screen Message for User 87: Loss, Next, Offer

You have a small list of people who paid because you answered their questions. One of them opens the subscription page and taps Cancel Subscription. The screen that follows is a note from you to that person, not to a cohort, at the moment of decision.

The cancel screen is a note to one subscriber

Apple made its retention-message feature available on November 4, 2026, so developers can show a message while a subscriber is moving through the App Store cancellation flow. The message appears after the subscriber taps Cancel Subscription, and the same screen still offers a cancel action. For your first hundred, this is where your manual knowledge becomes text.

Read the last support email from the person who is leaving. If you cannot name the thing they were using, the loss is too vague. The User 87 retention message has three parts, whether it appears on the cancel screen or in a cancellation email:

• What they would actually lose
• What you are shipping next
• One offer worth staying for

Name the loss they actually feel

Say what the person stops getting if the renewal ends. Name a real capability, a saved item, or a service they were using. Apple allows a retention message to describe a concrete loss, such as losing access to downloaded content, when the claim is factual.

Check the entitlements in your app before you write the loss. What stops working, what stays visible, and what expires? If the answer is “everything,” the message is weak. If it names the shared folder and the export queue, the message is specific.

Show the next thing they can see

Mention a feature, a fix, or a piece of content that will land soon. Make the line sound like a direct message from the person who ships it. Apple says a retention message can point out key features or mention upcoming content to someone starting a cancellation.

Do not promise a roadmap you have not built. If the next thing is a fix, say the fix. If it is a new export format, say the format. The subscriber is deciding now, and a vague future is not a reason to stay.

Keep the offer out of the copy

Write the text first. Text is mandatory, while an image and offers are optional. Keep the text to the loss and the next thing, with no price in the sentence. The offer can carry the price, but the copy cannot.

Pair the message with an offer if that is the right trade for the person who is leaving. Apple allows developers to pair a retention message with an offer, such as a discount or free period, and shows that offer to eligible subscribers in place of the image.

Do not put the offer in the sentence. The written header and body cannot mention offers, discounts, or prices because every subscriber reads that text, and Apple's App Review rejects messages that do.

Assign the message to the subscription you want to protect. One message can serve several subscriptions, but a subscription can carry just one message at a time. Pick the subscription whose plan matches the loss you just named.

Set the eligibility and the interval. In App Store Connect, you set the message for an auto-renewable subscription and choose who sees it and how long to wait before it can appear again. Aim for a message that appears once, while the choice is open, and does not nag the person who already said no.

When you want different copy for different subscribers, Apple's Retention Messaging API is pre-release and access is available by request only. For a small list, the manual version is usually better. Write the copy, test it on yourself, and ship it to the person who is deciding now.