The Problem: Customers Wanted to Stay — But Couldn't Figure Out How
A B2B analytics SaaS had a churn problem that looked like a pricing problem. Exit surveys showed: "Too expensive for what we need right now."
But here's what was actually happening: Customers wanted to downgrade to a cheaper plan, but the process was so confusing they just cancelled instead. The company was losing €40K+ MRR per quarter from "frustrated downgraders."
The Billing Journey Was a Black Box
The team knew something was wrong:
CS kept hearing: "I tried to downgrade but gave up"
Analytics showed: High drop-off on the billing page
Leadership suspected: "Our pricing is too complex"
But nobody had mapped the actual user journey:
Where exactly do users get stuck?
What are they trying to do?
What would "frictionless plan change" actually look like?
Product had built a "Manage Subscription" page — but it wasn't solving the problem.
Why are customers cancelling when they actually want to downgrade?
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SOLUTIONS
We Mapped The Real Journey, Defined Success, Fixed The Friction
10-day Product Clarity Review:
Interviewed 8 recent cancellations — walked through what they tried to do
Mapped the current billing journey — found 6 major confusion points (unclear CTAs, no preview of plan changes, scary "cancel" language, no confirmation states)
Defined success: "Users complete plan change in ≤3 clicks, with clear preview of what changes. Downgrade-to-cancel ratio hits 3:1."
Delivered ranked fix list — "These 4 changes will prevent 70% of frustrated cancellations"
30-day UX Delivery Pod:
Redesigned plan change flow (upgrade, downgrade, add-ons)
Added clear preview: "Here's what changes on your next bill"
Simplified language (no more "terminate subscription")
User-tested with 10 customers
Shipped build-ready spec
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RESULTS
Cancellations Down 23%. €120K+ Retained MRR.
8 weeks post-launch:
Cancellations from "price concerns" dropped 23%
Downgrade-to-cancel ratio went from 1:2 to 4:1 (more people downgrading vs. leaving)
Plan change completion rate: 89% (up from 47%)
Retained MRR: €31K/month = €372K annually
The fix wasn't cheaper pricing. It was removing friction from the journey customers actually wanted to take.
-23%
Cancellations
€372K
Annual retained revenue
89%
Plan change completion
“Claims are now system-aligned: tokens, states, a11y baked in. We cut component variants from 21 → 8, passed WCAG AA, and handoff questions dropped 82% — dev ships without e-mail ping-pong.”
Alexandru Goeia
UI Lead Transformation Project RAITT
