Cancellations Report

The Cancellations Report provides a comprehensive view of subscription cancellations across your business. By breaking cancellations into active (customer-initiated) and passive (payment failure) categories, you can identify the root causes of churn and take targeted action to improve retention.

What This Report Includes

This report analyzes all cancelled recurring subscriptions, segmented by the date each cancellation occurred.

Subscriptions Included:

Only recurring subscriptions (excludes one-time purchases)
All cancellation types — customer-initiated, system-generated, and payment-failure driven
Test orders are excluded
Date range is based on Cancellation Date (when the subscription was cancelled)

Why This Matters: Understanding why subscribers cancel is the first step toward reducing churn. Active cancellations suggest product or value issues, while passive cancellations point to payment recovery opportunities.

Report Metrics

Cancellations

The total number of recurring subscriptions that were cancelled during the selected period. This includes both customer-initiated cancellations and cancellations caused by failed payment attempts. Use this as your top-level churn indicator to monitor overall subscription health.

Cancellation Revenue Lost

The total revenue lost as a result of all subscription cancellations. This figure represents the recurring revenue that would have been collected had those subscriptions remained active. Revenue calculations depend on your Company Profile settings for shipping and tax inclusion.

Active Cancels

The number of subscriptions that were cancelled directly by the customer. These are intentional cancellations where the subscriber chose to end their subscription — typically through a self-service portal, customer service request, or manual action. A high count here may indicate dissatisfaction with the product, pricing concerns, or a lack of perceived value.

Active Cancel Rate

The percentage of total cancellations that were actively initiated by customers. This is calculated as Active Cancels divided by total Cancellations. A rising active cancel rate suggests you should investigate customer satisfaction, onboarding experience, or competitive positioning.

Passive Cancels

The number of subscriptions cancelled due to declined or failed charges. These subscribers did not choose to leave — their payment method failed and the subscription was ultimately terminated after recovery attempts were exhausted. This metric directly reflects the effectiveness of your dunning and payment retry strategies.

Passive Cancel Rate

The percentage of total cancellations attributed to payment failures. This is calculated as Passive Cancels divided by total Cancellations. A high passive cancel rate is often a strong signal that improvements to your payment recovery workflows — such as card updater services, retry logic, or pre-dunning outreach — could meaningfully reduce overall churn.

Available Dimensions

Dimensions let you group, filter, and drill into your data. Select any dimension to break down your metrics by that attribute.

Dimension	Description
Subscribed Date	The date the subscription was originally ordered
Subscribed Hour	Hour of day the subscription was ordered
Subscribed Day Of Week	Day of the week the subscription was ordered
Subscribed Week	Year-week of the subscription order
Subscribed Month	Year-month of the subscription order
Subscribed Year	Year the subscription was ordered
Cancel Date	The date the cancellation occurred
Cancel Hour	Hour of day the cancellation occurred
Cancel Day Of Week	Day of the week the cancellation occurred
Cancel Month	Year-month of the cancellation
Cancel Week	Year-week of the cancellation
Cancel Year	Year the cancellation occurred
Customer Email	Customer's email address
Customer ID	Customer identifier
Customer Information	Combined name, email, and phone for quick lookup
Connection	The connection (storefront) the customer belongs to
Order ID	Order identifier
Order Offer ID	Order-offer line item identifier
Is Blacklist	Whether the customer is blacklisted
Offer	The offer associated with the cancelled subscription
Offer Name	Offer name (text-searchable)
Offer Code	Offer code identifier
Primary Offer Category	Primary category assigned to the offer
Secondary Offer Category	Secondary category assigned to the offer
Item	The item on the subscription
Item SKU	SKU of the item (uses shipped SKU if available)
Campaign	The campaign attributed to the order
Primary Campaign Category	Primary category assigned to the campaign
Secondary Campaign Category	Secondary category assigned to the campaign
Charge Frequency	Billing frequency of the offer cycle
Shipping Frequency	Shipping frequency of the offer
Is Prepaid Offer	Whether the offer is a prepaid subscription
Discount Code	Coupon or discount code applied
Discount Name	Name of the discount applied
Discount Category	Category of the discount
Used Discount Code	Whether a discount code was used (Yes/No)
Is Gift	Whether the order was marked as a gift
Cancel User	The user who performed the cancellation
Cancel Reason	The reason selected for cancellation
Cancelled Renewal Cycle	The last successful billing cycle before cancellation
Days To Cancel	Number of days between subscription start and cancellation
Ship Country	Customer's shipping country
Ship State	Customer's shipping state
Tracking 1–20	Custom tracking parameters on the order
Device	Device used for the order
Device Type	Device type category

Key Business Insights

Active vs. Passive Split: Compare the ratio of active to passive cancellations over time. A healthy subscription business typically sees passive cancellations outpacing active, since payment recovery tools can win many of those back. If your active cancel rate is climbing, dig into customer feedback and recent changes to pricing or product.
Revenue Impact Trending: Track Cancellation Revenue Lost week-over-week or month-over-month to measure the financial impact of churn. Pair this with new subscription revenue to calculate your net revenue growth rate.
Seasonal Patterns: Look for spikes in cancellations around billing cycles, holiday periods, or after introductory pricing expires. These patterns can inform proactive retention campaigns.
Passive Cancel Recovery Opportunity: Multiply your Passive Cancels by your average order value to estimate the revenue recoverable through improved dunning. Even a modest improvement in payment recovery can yield significant returns.
Cohort Comparison: Filter by acquisition source or product to identify which customer segments have the highest cancellation rates, then prioritize retention efforts accordingly.

Optimization Strategies

Reduce Active Cancellations

Implement a cancellation save flow that offers alternatives (pause, skip, downgrade) before processing the cancellation
Survey cancelling customers to identify the top reasons for churn
Review your onboarding experience to ensure customers understand and receive value quickly
Consider loyalty perks or milestone rewards for long-tenured subscribers

Reduce Passive Cancellations

Enable card updater services to automatically refresh expired or replaced payment methods
Optimize your retry schedule to attempt charges at times with higher approval rates
Send pre-dunning email notifications before a payment fails, prompting customers to update their information
Offer alternative payment methods to reduce reliance on a single card

Monitor Revenue Impact

Set internal thresholds for acceptable Cancellation Revenue Lost and trigger alerts when exceeded
Break down lost revenue by product line or plan tier to identify your most vulnerable segments
Compare cancellation revenue against new subscription revenue to track net growth

Benchmark and Improve

Track your Active Cancel Rate and Passive Cancel Rate monthly to establish baselines
Set quarterly improvement targets for each metric
A/B test retention interventions and measure their impact on cancellation rates

Pro Tips

Pair with the Retention Report to see how many at-risk subscribers were successfully saved before cancellation — this gives you the full picture of your retention funnel.
Use date range comparisons to measure the before-and-after impact of any retention initiative, such as launching a new dunning sequence or adding a cancellation save offer.
Export this report regularly and share it with your product and customer success teams. Active cancellation trends often surface product issues before they appear in support tickets.
Focus on Passive Cancel Rate first — reducing passive cancellations is typically the fastest path to lower overall churn, since it requires process improvements rather than product changes.

Frequently Asked Questions

What's the difference between an active and passive cancellation? An active cancellation means the customer intentionally ended their subscription. A passive cancellation means the subscription was terminated because the customer's payment method was declined and could not be recovered through retry attempts.

Does this report include one-time purchases? No. The Cancellations Report only includes recurring subscriptions. One-time orders that are refunded or returned would appear in other reports such as the Refunds or Returns reports.

How is Cancellation Revenue Lost calculated? It represents the recurring revenue associated with each cancelled subscription. Revenue calculations depend on your Company Profile settings for shipping and tax inclusion, so the figure will align with how your business defines order value.