Churn in subscription apps: top 5 cancelation reasons (and what to do about them)

TL;DR: The top reasons users cancel app subscriptions are: insufficient usage (37%), cost concerns (35%), better alternatives (10%), technical issues (7%), and billing errors (up to 28% on Google Play). Churn reasons vary by region and app category. Most are preventable through improved onboarding, better value communication, reliable billing flows, and customer-aligned pricing strategies.

People who have met me in real life will know that I love reality TV. It really helps me to wind down. One of my favorite aspects of reality TV is the plot twists. But the State of Subscription App (SOSA) report this year is honestly giving Love is Blind a run for its money. There was so much incredible, insightful data filled with unexpected stats and gasp-worthy moments…

One that caught my eye as I binged my way through the insights was the section on cancellation data — I know it’s weird, but I’m just a data nerd who loves reality TV. I was hooked on the rate at which billing errors impact churn, all the way to those who find a better match, I mean app. 

It was too juicy not to spill the tea on what we’re seeing happen and, in a more positive light, how you can prevent your subscribers from leaving. Let’s dive into what this SOSA report can teach us about cancellations and how to avoid this curse.

What can the data tell us? 

We’ve got two interesting sources, but I’ll start with my favorite: Google Play’s cancelation survey data. That is one trusty source. Of course, this will vary from app to app, but the general insights are as follows.

The top reasons for unsubscribing are:

• Insufficient usage (37.02%)
• Cost concerns (34.64%)
• Other reasons (11.68%)
• Finding a better app (9.54%)
• Technical issues (7.12%). 

The high rate of cancellations due to low usage suggests that many apps could improve retention by enhancing onboarding and communicating value more effectively to drive engagement. Another common reason is cost, but as we’ll discuss later on, that may not be a price reason but a value issue. 

How does the region impact cancelation reasons?

The biggest mistake we can make when using data is assuming it applies globally. The results of the SOSA report support this. I’ve seen markets react so differently to an app from what they are willing to pay to the content they consume within app.

If we compare regions of the world, we see some variation. For example, issues related to usage tend to be higher in India and Southeast Asia than in the Middle East and Africa. Cost-related reasons are also reported higher in Western Europe and Asia Pacific than in India and Southeast Asia. Technical issues also appear to be a higher driver of churn in the Middle East and Africa than in the rest of the world.

	Not Enough Usage	Cost Related	Found a Better App	Technical Issues	Other
Asia-Pacific	37.66%	38.47%	9.18%	5.38%	9.31%
India & South East Asia	40.79%	29.07%	11.67%	8.86%	9.61%
Latin America	33.84%	35.33%	9.92%	7.18%	13.73%
Middle East & Africa	25.98%	34.92%	9.96%	13.36%	15.78%
North America	38.72%	33.99%	8.79%	6.13%	12.36%
Western Europe	37.53%	38.48%	8.31%	5.41%	10.28%
Rest of World	39.41%	32.10%	10.54%	6.80%	11.15%

Breakdown of reasons given per region

How does the app category impact the reason for the cancellation?

We also see even more variation in terms of category. Unsurprisingly, gaming has the highest percentage churning due to price, potentially these are more ‘nice to have’ then ‘must-have’ apps.

I found the low turnover of price-related reasons for travel interesting, but my guess is that those are key apps for regular usage or potentially for work (such as an Uber One subscription).

Overview of cancellation reason per category

Ideally, you have your own data to help you pinpoint areas of improvement. But I recognize that this isn’t always the case, so if you’re lacking your own data, these results can help you guide what reasons might be more present for your audience.

What can we learn from the reasons for expiration?

The report also shared other interesting cancelation data from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store based on ‘expiration reasons.’ The data sources are enormous for this, with 99.5 million entries! However, it’s harder to understand the reason behind it. The majority falls in ‘Unsubscribe.’

What caught my attention is the second-largest category of billing errors, particularly on Google Play, which accounts for 28.2% of cancellations compared to 15.1% on the App Store. It would be easy to skip over this, but this is actually an excellent place to reduce your churn.

Combining all of this data, it seems that the biggest opportunities are located in:

1. Insufficient usage
2. Cost related reasons
3. Billing errors

These are closely followed by ‘Finding a Better App’ and ‘Technical Issues.’ Now that we know where we’re losing customers, let’s consider how we can keep them instead. I’ll cover tips and advice for preventing churn focused on these most common reasons. If you’re in a rush, you could always skip ahead to your most common cancelation issue, although I do think there are insights to be gained in all reasons.

1. Insufficient usage

New Year, New Me. We’ve all done the New Year’s app purge, where we mass-deleted all the apps we optimistically downloaded but never used. It makes us somehow feel like we’ve got our life in order. 

But the key to sorting out this common reason isn’t retention, as you might automatically assume it is. In truth, it’s usually an activation issue (failing to activate people in the first place) and a retention issue (failing to keep people engaged).

If you want to work on this issue, you first need to pinpoint whether they’re churning early or later in the journey. Find out which milestones they passed. From there, you can focus on reducing that loss of engagement upfront. I always encourage starting at the beginning of the journey, with onboarding, to show value before moving on to longer-term habit-building.

This is a huge topic to explore, far too broad to cover here. So here are some of my favorite resources to help you begin optimizing the start of that journey:

• Why your onboarding might be too short
• How to build an onboarding campaign to prevent new user churn
• 10 apps with great user onboardings
• How Applica redesigned Five Minute Journal’s onboarding to boost ARPU by 20%

Key summary

Most users churn because they never build a habit with your app. This often signals an activation issue — not just long-term retention — and starts with onboarding.

2. Cost concerns

Cost concerns are the second most significant reason for churn at 34.64%. The truth is that I’ve always hated cost as a reason listed on a cancelation survey. “It’s too expensive” can mean so many different things, like:

• I got it at a cheaper subscription price, and now I don’t want to pay the full price for the same thing
• I don’t think it’s worth the price
• I used to be able to afford this, but I can’t anymore 

All these three reasons lead someone to select “It’s too expensive,” but they’re all very different issues with different solutions.

Tackling cost issues starts with understanding the real cost concerns. You can do this through quantitative and qualitative data. The quantitative data will help you know when they are churning and whether discounts impact it. The qualitative will help you better understand the reasons behind it (here is a guide on interviewing canceled customers questions to understand their perception of your price better).

A client once asked for my help in understanding cost concerns and churn. Through an analysis, we found that customers who signed up at 50% off had a £50 lower LTV and a far higher churn rate than those who didn’t sign up with a discount.

It’s worth checking the impact of potential discounts, especially free trials, on churn. While they are hailed in the industry as a great way to onboard customers, they can attract many of the wrong types of customers. What is the LTV of customers who joined using a free trial and those who did not? Is there test data indicating that removing the free trial may drive better retention in the long term?

Yeah, discounts and free trials aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

Once you’ve ruled these reasons out, you want to separate the unpreventable (lifestyle changes) from the preventable (it wasn’t worth the price). 

A final option to help customers find a price point that’s right for them is ensuring there are downgrade options. They might not need your full option, so offering them this may help prevent a cancelation outright—especially if they are not using all the features. 

By now, most of us have heard of Duolingo, the language app with the aggressive owl mascot. It already had a paid subscription but recently added Max, a higher tier that includes AI features. Rather than increasing the price for all users to offer this feature, they allowed users to self-select if they were more serious or casual by choosing a tier that suits them.

Key summary

“Too expensive” usually means misaligned value. Use qualitative research to distinguish between actual affordability and lack of perceived worth.

3. Billing issues

I was shocked to discover that ‘Billing Issues’ were such a big reason for churn. If we look at direct data from the app stores, we see that Google Play accounts for 28.2% of cancellations compared to 15.1% on the App Store; both are way too high. Since both app stores handle most of the retry logic (usually through e-mail and in app), it’s easy to assume it’s out of your control, but it isn’t.

Once a payment fails, you can choose to enable an optional grace period on both Google Play and the App Store. If you do this, it allows users to stay technically active while they resolve what may be an accidental payment issue, such as insufficient funds or an expired credit card. If you’re using RevenueCat, you can also use the BILLING_ISSUE event to trigger push or additional emails in your own brand’s tone of voice to encourage users to update their subscriptions. 

For web-to-app subscribers, ensure your payment provider’s dunning flows (as this process is known) are set up, or you’ve set up your own one. Don’t be afraid to push, I’ve seen dunning flows with 10-11 pushes, and customers often only fix it on the 10th or 11th push. Talk about making you sweat! 

Regardless of the platform, it’s essential to ensure that customers know how to update their billing information. For in-app purchases, you can direct them to the right place in the app store. For web payments, you can make sure your account settings are accessible and user-friendly.

Don’t lose users to billing issues accidentally. Assume it’s an easy mistake to remedy for as long as possible. And if they don’t, that’s where your win-back flows are crucial to getting them back on board.

If you’re still seeing a high volume of billing-related churn, it can be worth diving in to see where they are coming from. For example, from certain campaigns, pricing tiers, or specific audiences. Sometimes, it can be a case of lower-quality acquisition increasing your overall rate of billing errors. Trials can also sometimes increase the rate of billing errors, with users intentionally using expired cards.

Key summary

Billing failures cause a silent but fixable wave of churn. Google Play sees particularly high rates; use grace periods and retry logic to recover subscribers.

4. Finding a better app

No one likes to get left for someone else, whether that’s on Love is Blind or the App Store.

What I found interesting about the data was that 9.54% of customers said they left for another app, a better app—ouch. Not to rub it in, but this means they still wanted something that solved their problem but not you. This is different from someone discovering they don’t need your app. It’s basically the opposite of “It’s not you, it’s me.”

Now the question is, did you accidentally missell yourself, like an over-optimistic dating profile with filtered photos and a fake love of hiking? Or did they find a better solution to the problem you promised to solve? 

To tackle the first part, you want to manage expectations. Refine your app store product page to ensure that customers have a clear idea of the app before they download it; then do the same with your website. 

I really want you to hone in on the reasons people choose you; reviews can be a great source of inspiration for this, as can customer interviews. Reflect on these reasons throughout the beginning of your customer journey, as well as your ads and, if relevant, your website.

A great way to determine if this is the issue is to collect feedback through customer surveys from canceled customers. You should ask them: What led you to sign up? And then, did our app meet the needs you signed up for? From there, assuming the reason is relevant, you can dive deeper into understanding why it didn’t meet their needs. 

This ensures the app is aligned with customer expectations and provides value.

The other part is not only meeting but exceeding their expectations. As Sandy said in Grease, “You better shape up because I need an app.” (Maybe it was “a man,” but you get the point). It’s not enough to keep delivering what you are already. Customers and competitors are constantly evolving. You consistently need to shape up and improve to ensure you stay relevant.

I noticed this the other day with an app I’ve loved for almost three years, Deliciously Ella. It’s a great app filled with vegan recipes. The other day, I realized I wasn’t as happy with it anymore and pondered what had happened. I loved Deliciously Ella’s recipes, I had all her cookbooks, and they were regularly releasing new recipes, so what was wrong? 

That was when I realized, looking at competitor apps (Pick up Limes and Mob Kitchen, sorry, Ella), that the recipes had become repetitive. Sure, they were new, but they felt similar; they didn’t intrigue or excite me. Their search function was limited, and they still lacked certain recipe types I was looking for (such as smoothies and easy lunches).

Mob Kitchen’s app opened with a block of only packed lunches, perfect! Pick up Limes had recipes from cuisines I’d never tried before. They felt exciting and new. Of course, we are in the Honeymoon Phase right now, and they could get boring over time. But for now, I could see the variation and the ease I had been missing.

I didn’t want to leave Ella — especially since my annual subscription has renewed only days prior to this epiphany — but I was considering it. I’d been in this relationship for almost three years and the app hadn’t shaped up enough. 

So, how do you stop me and other customers from getting a wandering eye? 

I’ve already hinted at the starting point: monitoring trends and proactively speaking to your customers. Not just looking to understand what they are asking for, but what would help them to achieve their goal better. If Ella [or, more realistically, her team] had asked me, I might not have said “new cuisines” and “a packed lunch section.” Still, I would have answered “finding interesting recipes I’ve never cooked before” and “making it easier to find quick and healthy lunches to prepare upfront.” 

This information can then be translated into potential upgrades and changes to the communication. Next year, I might be joining that 9.54% of users switching to a different app.

Key summary

Churn to competitors signals unmet expectations. Review messaging and positioning to ensure you’re solving the problem you claim to — and watch how rivals evolve.

5. Technical issues

Now, it’s time to discuss technical issues. It’s reported that an average of 7.12% of customers leave because of them. If you see this happening to you, it means it’s time to invest in proactive measures to reduce the issues and resolve them when they inevitably occur. 

Rigorous testing of the app before going live or releasing any new updates and/or features is key, as is ensuring multiple individuals are also testing. 

However, it can be difficult to get investment in harder-to-measure areas like quality assurance (QA), so knowing the stats for your app (such as how many cancel due to technical issues) means you can calculate the difference in value that the technical issues are costing the app.

When you discover issues that you feel could impact churn through error logs or customer support, these must be resolved quickly. Communication about the resolutions and improvements is key. That builds trust with your audience that you are working to improve performance. Often, the updates implemented to improve apps have vague descriptions, such as “resolved some bugs,” when these are a great place to show new and returning customers what you’ve improved.

The next level is ensuring development and customer service have a direct line. This can be done by having a technical, second line of technical support aware of development roadmaps and due dates for bug fixes. That way, your customer care can communicate to customers upfront which bugs are known, which sprint they are in, and when they are expected to be fixed. 

Connecting development with CRM can also ensure that you are upfront with your customers about what they are being warned about. You can also be proactive in your communication, especially with key customers. For example, we know this is an issue; we are working on it and will have it resolved by the end of today.

Key summary

Bugs and performance problems drive churn even at low volumes. Treat support and error logs as churn signals, and communicate when issues are resolved.

From data to improvement

While this data is super interesting, the most important thing is also to try to gather this data for yourself to understand exactly what’s driving churn for you. From there, a general win is having personalized retention flows on the cancelation page — check out this great guide on setting them up. 

So you find out why they are canceling and offer messaging to encourage them to stay based on their specific reason. However, as you’ll notice, with all reasons, the key part is working out the actual cause and proactively — rather than reactively — preventing churn.

If the data can teach us anything, it’s that most churn is preventable. Billing issues, lack of usage, or even technical issues are all things we can influence and systematically improve. Don’t wait until they’ve got a foot in the door, improve the relationship with your customers so they never pack that bag, or cancel their subscription.

Key takeaways — Your retention checklist

• Onboarding is often the root of churn, not just retention. Audit whether users activate early—and redesign flows to surface value faster.
• “Too expensive” rarely means price alone. Use surveys and interviews to decode perceived value vs. true affordability.
• Billing issues are fixable churn. Set up grace periods and proactive dunning flows, especially on Android where failure rates are higher.
• Competitive churn is insight-rich. When users switch to a “better” app, it signals either misaligned expectations or lagging innovation—mine those insights.
• Technical issues erode trust. Track cancelation feedback alongside support tickets, and close the loop visibly when fixing bugs.