What cancellation emails are
A cancellation email is the message a business sends to confirm that an order, booking, subscription or membership has been canceled, usually with what happens next to the money or the access.
These are the emails brands send back. If you are the customer writing to cancel something, this is the reply you should expect: check that yours names what was canceled and the date it takes effect.
We collected 60 cancellation emails from 45 brands out of two ordinary inboxes, and every number on this page is about those 60. 8 are shown, one per brand. Three were taken off for leaking customer details or rendering broken; the rest have no published image yet. They are one slice of the Nitrosend email library.
Cancellation emails you can look at
Filter by what was canceled, layout or call to action. Open any one to read the subject line, what it does, and the prompt that rebuilds it.
The New York Times Company
You've canceled your subscription
Amazon.com.au
Your order has been cancelled.
Genki
🍂 Your subscription with Genki is canceled
Officeworks
Officeworks Order [REF] cancellation and refund
One Playground
Your Cancellation Has Been Confirmed
Quandoo
❗️Your reservation at Ampersand Cafe & Bookstore is cancelled
Uber Eats
Your order from Guzman y Gomez (World Square) cannot be fulfilled
PrettyLittleThing
Update on your order
What 60 collected cancellation emails do
What the collected emails do
60 emails from 45 brands| Pattern | Share | Count |
|---|---|---|
| Neutral tone | 82% | 49 of 60 |
| Apologetic tone | 10% | 6 of 60 |
| Plain, transactional subject line | 100% | 60 of 60 |
| Short or micro length | 85% | 51 of 60 |
| Exactly one link or button | 42% | 25 of 60 |
| Greets the reader by first name | 67% | 40 of 60 |
| Plain-text layout | 67% | 40 of 60 |
| Monochrome color | 95% | 57 of 60 |
| Hero image | 0% | 0 of 60 |
| Follows an order or booking | 68% | 41 of 60 |
| Follows a subscription, membership or account change | 27% | 16 of 60 |
The register is the clearest pattern. 82% of the 60 are neutral and 10% apologize, and the two apologetic ones shown here, Officeworks and PrettyLittleThing, are cases where the brand canceled the order itself. Every subject line is plain and transactional, though not every one names the cancellation: PrettyLittleThing's is "Update on your order". The median email has one link or button, and 85% are short or micro. Most are text with little or no design: 67% use a plain-text layout, as The New York Times, Genki and One Playground do here, and none uses a hero image.
Not every cancellation should be sent at all. When a subscription lapses because a card payment failed, a pause is the safer default: a few notice emails while the payment is retried over several days, and the cancellation email only once the retries run out.
Getting the message delivered is a transactional email problem, and the line between a cancellation and a win-back campaign is drawn in transactional versus marketing email.
Who sends them
Travel sends the most in this set, then SaaS. Five industries have four or more emails each; food and beverage, healthcare, hospitality, health and fitness, and marketplaces have three each.
By industry
Industries with 4+ of the 60 emails| Industry | Emails | Share of the set |
|---|---|---|
| Travel | 10 emails | 17% of the set |
| SaaS | 7 emails | 12% of the set |
| Ecommerce | 5 emails | 8% of the set |
| Media and publishing | 5 emails | 8% of the set |
| Automotive | 4 emails | 7% of the set |
Next to this one
The emails either side of a cancellation: order confirmation, booking confirmation, subscription and re-engagement.
Questions people ask
In the 60 we collected, the job is confirmation: 68% follow an order or booking and 27% a subscription or membership. The ones shown here say what was canceled, then what happens next: a refund (Amazon.com.au, Officeworks, PrettyLittleThing) or access until the billing date (The New York Times).
Short. 85% of the 60 we collected are short or micro, and the median one has a single link or button. Uber Eats sends two short sentences and one button. The longer ones here, such as PrettyLittleThing, spend the extra space on the refund amount, the date it arrives and refund FAQs.
Usually not. 82% of the 60 we collected are neutral in tone and 10% (6 emails) apologize. The two apologetic ones shown here, Officeworks and PrettyLittleThing, are cases where the brand canceled the order itself. The other six shown are neutral and do not say sorry.
Rarely as its main job: 1 of the 60 we collected is tagged as a win-back email. Some shown here offer a softer way back: The New York Times links to reactivate the subscription, Quandoo offers to find another time, and PrettyLittleThing adds a Forget Something block under the refund details.