How to Create a Cancel Account Page

Some members may be asking about canceling their accounts. It may be more than you want to handle manually. To remove some of your workload, you can create a page where members can perform this task themselves. Note that if you already have a Cancel membership level established, you can skip directly to step 4.

1. Create a folder called “Canceled”
   This will hold accounts that have been canceled. Go to Folders

1. 1. Click on “Create New Folder”
   2. Name your folder

Note that only the primary administrator on the account can create folders.

2. Create a free membership level called “Cancel”

1. 1. Go to Labels & Membership
   2. Click “+ Add Membership Level” and type Cancel for the Membership name field. You may optionally enter a Website description.
   3. Make sure “Allow signup for this membership from website” and “Allow these members to be listed in directory” are disabled.
   4. For the field “Is this level paid or free?” choose the option “This is a free membership level.”
   5. If you want to allow members to later rejoin after canceling, under “Allow members to upgrade/downgrade to,” enable any of your membership levels that they will be allowed to upgrade to.
   6. Click “Save Settings & Next” to save your settings.
   7. In the “Actions” tab under “When member switches to this level from another level”, “Add account to the following folder(s): select the “Canceled (folder)”.
   8. Under “When member switches to this level from another level, Remove account from the following folder(s):” select any applicable folders except the “Canceled” (folder).
   9. We recommend creating a page on your website to redirect members to afterwards so as to provide a confirmation of the cancellation. You can enter the URL to this page under the “Redirect user to following URL after switch” setting in the “When member switches to this level from another level” section. You could thank them for their membership and let them know that they are welcome to rejoin again by logging into their account (assuming you opted to enact the instructions in step 2 above). You could also include an exit survey on this page if you want to gather data about why members are canceling.
   10. You can also setup a confirmation email to be emailed automatically to the member after they cancel under the section “When member switches to this level from another level”.
   11. Click “Save Settings & Close” to save your settings.

3. Enable downgrades on each membership level
   For each of your other membership levels:

1. 1. Under “Allow members to upgrade/downgrade to,” enable “Cancel” as an allowed downgrade.
   2. Click “Save Settings & Next” to save your settings.
   3. If you decided that you want to allow members to later rejoin after canceling, under the Actions tab, within in the section “When member switches to this level from another level” set the following:
      1. “Add account to following folder(s):” – select “Members (folder)” and any other folders that the member should be added to if they decide to renew later.
      2. “Remove account from following folder(s):” – select “Canceled (folder)”
   4. Click “Save Settings & Close” to save your settings.
   5. Be sure to repeat these steps for each membership level.

4. Build a Cancel page on your website
   Create a Cancel page on your website and place the following shortcode or HTML snippet on the page:
   • If you are using WordPress use the following shortcode:
     [mw open=”downgrade/cancel”/]
   • If you are on Squarespace, Weebly or other HTML sites, obtain the HTML5 snippet for the “Membership Sign-Up Form” from the Help section. Then locate and replace the text “join” in the snippet with “downgrade/cancel”.

Note that if you do not name the membership level “Cancel” in step #2, you will need to replace the word cancel in the shortcode or snippet with the name that matches the membership level you created. ie. instead of “downgrade/cancel” it would be “downgrade/name-of-your-level”.

How it Works

Once set up, a member will be able to sign in on your website and downgrade to the “Cancel” level on this Cancel page or on your account manage page. If you receive a request from a member to cancel, you can simply send them a link to the Cancel page.

When downgrading to the “Cancel” level, any existing automatic recurring billing will be canceled, the member account will be placed in the “Canceled” folder and removed from the active member folders. Note that:

1. No refunds are automatically issued. To refund a payment, an admin will need to go to the account, click on the payment in the Timeline and select “Refund”.
2. In order to retain the financial records/transactions associated with the account for reporting/accounting purposes, the account is not automatically deleted. You can review and delete those accounts accordingly once you no longer require those financial records/transactions.

Encouraging Other Options

If many members are seeking to cancel at once, you may want to consider offering to pause their membership as an alternative that may keep them around longer. You could include content on the Cancel Page — such as a “Pause” membership level to encourage those other options instead. See the articles below on pausing membership.

Also see:
How to Temporarily Pause Memberships for Organizations with Rolling Renewal Dates

How to Temporarily Pause Memberships for Organizations with Fixed Renewal Dates

How to Pause Membership Indefinitely

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