The essential subscription templates are: willingness-to-pay surveys and interview scripts for setting prices, a product/market fit survey, a sales script, free trial and renewal reminder emails, price increase emails, dunning emails for failed payments, a cancellation exit survey, and compliance and exit checklists. Each template on this page is free, complete and ready to copy into your own tools.
Key takeaways
- Eleven free templates cover the whole subscription lifecycle, from setting a price to selling the business.
- Australian subscription businesses need trial, renewal and price-change notices and an easy exit ready before 1 July 2027.
- Every customer email should state the date, the price and the way out. That one habit prevents most complaints.
- Two bonus templates on this page, a cancellation confirmation and a win-back email, close the loop most businesses leave open.
- Templates save time, but the specifics (your numbers, your customer's words) are what make them work.
Imagine you run a coffee shop.
If you work in the business, you make the coffee, take the money, sweep the floors and order the milk. If you work on the business, you step back from the day-to-day and build the systems: hiring, training, processes. And if you work over the business, you're thinking about the second store, the third, and what the whole thing could become.
I wrote about "in, on and over" in The Subscription Playbook because most owners I've worked with are stuck "in." When I did business coaching, the first exercise I gave clients was to log every activity they did for a week. They'd usually get angry with themselves when they saw where their time went.
And a surprising amount of it went on writing the same things, over and over.
The reminder email. The "your card didn't go through" email. The awkward price rise letter, drafted three times and sent late. The customer survey thrown together the night before.
Every one of those is a template waiting to happen. Write it properly once, and you've bought back hours every month, plus you'll make fewer mistakes, because a good template remembers the date, the price and the cancel link even on the day you don't.
So here's the library. Eleven templates, each complete and ready to copy, organized by where you are in the life of a subscription. Plus two bonus templates you won't find on the individual pages, and the free tools that go with them.
What's in the template library?
| Template | Use it when | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Willingness-to-pay interview script | You're setting or testing a price | 25-question, 30-minute script, recruitment email, notes sheet |
| Willingness-to-pay survey | You need a price range from many people | 14 questions, Van Westendorp and Gabor-Granger, invite email |
| Sean Ellis PMF survey | You want to know if you have product/market fit | The four core questions, segment questions, scoring sheet |
| VSL script | You're selling an offer that needs explaining | Five-step fill-in script, 3-minute version |
| Free trial reminders | You offer a trial or intro price | Six emails and an SMS |
| AU subscription compliance checklist | You sell subscriptions to Australians | 55 checks for the 1 July 2027 rules |
| Renewal reminder emails | You sell annual or auto-renewing plans | Five emails and two SMS |
| Price increase emails | You're raising prices | Six emails and letters for every situation |
| Dunning emails | Payments fail (they will) | Eight emails, SMS and banner copy |
| Exit survey | Customers cancel | One-question, branching and five-question versions |
| Selling a business checklist (AU) | You're thinking of selling, even years away | Four-stage checklist from two years out to settlement |
Which template do you need right now?
Work out which stage you're at. Most businesses need two or three of these this month, not all eleven.
Stage 1: Before you set a price
The most expensive mistake in subscriptions isn't a bad email. It's a price picked by guesswork.
Start with the willingness-to-pay interview script. It spends the first twenty minutes on the customer's problem, what it costs them and what they pay today, and only then asks about price. The best question in it: "What would have to be true for this to be worth $X a month to you?" Then you stay quiet.
Once you've done ten interviews, run the willingness-to-pay survey to put numbers on what you heard. It includes the four Van Westendorp questions, worded exactly, plus a Gabor-Granger price ladder if you're choosing between specific prices. Paste the answers into the Van Westendorp Calculator and you'll have an acceptable price range in minutes.
If you already have users, add the Sean Ellis PMF survey. One question, "How would you feel if you could no longer use [product]?", tells you whether you've built something people depend on. Superhuman scored 22% the first time it asked, then used the answers to reach 58% within three quarters. The PMF Survey Scorer does the math.
The mistake these prevent: asking "what would you pay?" and getting a low, made-up number.
Stage 2: Selling the subscription
If your offer needs explaining (a coaching program, a membership, software with a learning curve), the VSL script gives you the five-step video sales letter formula from Feed a Starving Crowd: hook, rapport, big problem, bigger solution, grand offer. I've updated it for 2026, with captions, vertical cut-downs, and an offer section that says how billing and cancellation work before anyone clicks buy.
The mistake it prevents: a sales video that's all hype and no offer, or one that hides the subscription terms until checkout.
Stage 3: Sign-up and free trials
This is where subscription businesses win trust or lose it.
The free trial reminders cover the whole trial: the "trial started" email that confirms the end date and price, the "trial ending" email that's the legal and commercial heart of it, a last-day reminder, the converted receipt, an intro-price-ending notice, and a version for no-card trials.
If you sell to Australians, work through the AU subscription compliance checklist before you change anything else. It turns the new rules into 55 tick boxes across scope, sign-up, pricing, notices, cancellation, design, terms, billing and records.
The mistake these prevent: a customer finding out about the price from their bank statement.
Stage 4: Keeping customers
Three templates do most of the work here.
The renewal reminder emails include my favorite: the 30-day "your year with us" email that reminds customers what they got before it asks them to pay again. If you can't fill in the usage numbers with something impressive, that's an early warning.
The price increase emails cover a standard monthly rise, an annual rise at renewal, grandfathering, a rise with new value and a legacy plan, a letter for business clients, and a seven-day reminder. Run your numbers through the Price Increase Simulator first. On a rise from $49 to $55, you'd have to lose about 11% of customers because of it before revenue falls.
The dunning emails recover customers who never meant to leave. Across Recurly's network in July 2026, involuntary churn was 1.25% against total churn of 3.60%. That's about a third of churn from failed payments. Two pre-expiry warnings and a 14-day, five-email sequence fix a lot of it.
The mistake these prevent: losing customers to surprise charges, clumsy price rises and expired cards.
Stage 5: When customers leave
The exit survey comes in three sizes: one optional question inside your cancel flow, a branching follow-up for each reason, and a five-question email survey after they've gone. It also includes the weekly review sheet I'd use to run a "Voice of the Customer" meeting, which we ran every week at my previous company.
Pair it with the guide to cancellation flows that save customers legally, which matches one offer to each exit reason.
The mistake it prevents: churn you can count but can't explain.
Stage 6: When you leave
One day you might sell. The selling a business checklist starts two years out, because that's when most value is added or lost: clean financials, less dependence on you, customer concentration, assignable contracts, and the Australian tax checks (GST going concern, CGT concessions) to raise with your accountant.
The mistake it prevents: selling a business for its people and its files instead of its recurring revenue. (I've done that. I don't recommend it.)
Get a playbook built for your business
The free AI Subscription Playbook Generator turns your answers into personalized strategies for pricing, growth, retention and more, built on the book.
The Australian 2027 notice calendar
From 1 July 2027, Australia's subscription rules require businesses to send prescribed information at prescribed times during a subscription, and to provide an easy, straightforward way to cancel. As at October 2026, the regulations setting exact timing and content weren't published. Here's the calendar I'd build now, with timing as a setting you can change. It's general information; check your setup with your adviser. The background is in Australia's subscription trap laws.
| Moment | Recommended timing | Template | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trial starts | Trial started (end date, price) | Day 0 | Free trial reminders, Template 1 |
| Trial about to convert | Trial ending | A few days before (3 for a 7-day trial, 7 for a 30-day trial) | Free trial reminders, Template 2 |
| Intro price about to step up | Intro price ending | Before the higher price applies | Free trial reminders, Template 5 |
| Annual renewal | Year in review | About 30 days before | Renewal reminders, Template 1 |
| Annual renewal | Final reminder | About 7 days before | Renewal reminders, Template 2 |
| Open-ended monthly plan | Periodic reminder | Every six months (the draft's proposal) | Renewal reminders, Template 4 |
| Price change | Price increase notice | At least 30 days before (monthly); before renewal (annual) | Price increase emails |
| Card about to expire | Pre-expiry warning | 30 and 7 days before expiry | Dunning emails |
| Payment fails | Dunning sequence (with a cancel option) | Days 0, 3, 7, 12, 14 | Dunning emails |
| Customer cancels | Cancellation confirmation | Immediately | Bonus template below |
Two rules run through every row: state the date and the price, and include the way out.
Two bonus templates most businesses forget
These two close the loop at the end of a subscription. Neither appears on the individual template pages.
Bonus 1: The cancellation confirmation email
Send it the moment a cancellation is processed. It's your proof that you honored the request, and your first win-back message.
Subject: Your [Plan name] cancellation is confirmed
Hi [First name],
This confirms we've canceled your [Plan name] subscription.
- Cancellation received: [Date and time]
- Your access continues until: [End date]
- Final charge: [None / A$(Amount) on (Date)]
- You won't be charged again after that.
What happens to your [account / data / bookings]: [Plain explanation, e.g. "We'll keep your account saved for 90 days, then delete it."]
If you change your mind, you can restart anytime in one click: [Restart link]
Thanks for being a customer. If you have a minute, tell us why you left: [Exit survey link]
[Your name]
[Business name] | [Phone]
What makes it work: the end date and "you won't be charged again" are stated plainly. A customer who isn't sure the cancellation worked is a customer who disputes the next charge.
Bonus 2: The 30-day win-back email
Send it about a month after the subscription ends, once, to customers who left on good terms.
Subject: [First name], we fixed [the thing you told us about]
Hi [First name],
When you left [Product] last month, you told us [their exit reason, in plain words].
Since then, we've [the specific change you made, or what's new that answers their reason].
If you'd like to give it another go, your [account / history / settings] are still saved:
[Restart link]
If not, no problem at all. Thanks again for being a customer.
[Your name]
Only send this if you genuinely changed something, and use the exit survey answer to choose who gets which version. If the reason was "I only needed it for a short time," send nothing, or a short "we're here if you need us" note six months later.
Why bother? Recurly's 2026 research found that nearly one in four new subscriptions now comes from a previously canceled customer. A respectful exit is the start of the next sign-up.
The free tools that go with the templates
Templates tell customers things. Tools tell you things. These are the ones I'd use alongside each template, all free in your browser.
| If you're using... | Use this tool | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Willingness-to-pay survey | Van Westendorp Calculator | Your acceptable price range |
| Interview script or exit survey | Customer Pain-Point Analyser | The themes in what customers say |
| Sean Ellis survey | PMF Survey Scorer | Your score, overall and by segment |
| VSL script | Synthetic Customer Panel | How simulated buyers react to your hook and price |
| Compliance checklist, trial and renewal emails | AU Subscription Compliance Checker | Gaps in your sign-up, notices and exit |
| Price increase emails | Price Increase Simulator | MRR impact and break-even churn |
| Renewal emails | Annual Discount Calculator | Whether your annual discount beats monthly churn |
| Dunning emails and exit survey | Churn Rate Calculator | What churn is costing you |
| Selling checklist | Valuation Estimator | A revenue multiple range for your business |
The full list is on the tools page.
How do you make a template sound like you?
A template that reads like a template gets treated like one. Here's how I'd adapt any of them in ten minutes.
- Replace every bracket with something specific. "You booked 11 sessions" beats "you used our service."
- Use your customer's words. Lift phrases from your exit surveys and interviews. If customers call it "the Sunday invoicing nightmare," so should you.
- Sign it with a real name. And use an address that accepts replies.
- Read it aloud. If you wouldn't say it to a customer at the counter, rewrite it.
- Cut a third. Most first drafts are too long. Money emails should be skimmable in ten seconds.
- Keep the facts block. Date, price, what happens next, how to change or cancel. Every time.
Steal this: the facts block
Put the money facts in a short list near the top of any billing email: the date, the amount (including GST for Australian consumers), the payment method, and the link to change or cancel. Customers find what they need in seconds, your support inbox gets quieter, and you've got a clean record of exactly what you told them.
What can't templates do?
Let me be honest about the limits.
A template can't fix a product people don't use. If your trial conversion only works when customers forget to cancel, a clear reminder will lower it. If your exit survey says "not using it enough" month after month, the problem started at onboarding. The churn reduction playbook is where to look.
A template isn't legal advice. The Australian templates reflect the law as at October 2026, but compliance depends on your whole setup, and the regulations are still to come. Use the templates as your starting point and get your final setup checked.
A template can't set your price for you. The surveys and scripts gather evidence. You still have to decide, and test.
And one more: templates go stale. I'll keep these updated as the 2027 regulations land and as the market changes. Check the "updated" date on each page.
What to do next
- Pick your stage from the list above and open the one or two templates you need this month.
- If you sell to Australians, start with the compliance checklist and the trial and renewal reminders.
- Paste the bonus cancellation confirmation into your billing system today. It takes five minutes.
- Put the matching tool next to each template so you measure what changes.
If you'd like the full thinking behind these templates, from choosing a subscription model to building a moat, the book is free.
Read the whole book free
The Subscription Playbook as a free ebook and audiobook. Australian business owners can claim a free hardcover, shipped free.
Claim the free hardcover Get the ebookAnd if you're an Australian business owner wondering what all this does to your margins, cash flow and tax, that's a conversation for an accountant.
Free Subscription Profit Review
Australian business owners can book a free 30-minute review with a BPAG Accountants adviser. An honest conversation about:
- whether a subscription model could work for your business
- how recurring revenue could cover your fixed costs each month
- how it could lift what your business is worth
No cost, no obligation. General information only until we understand your situation.
More in this section
Free Trial Reminder Email Templates
Free trial reminder emails to copy: trial started, trial ending, last-day and intro-price-ending notices, built for Australia's July 2027 rules.
Subscription Renewal Reminder Email…
Copy-ready subscription renewal reminder emails for Australia: 30-day and 7-day annual reminders, six-monthly notices, receipts and SMS, built for 2027.
Selling a Business Checklist Australia
A free selling-a-business checklist for Australia: prepare 12 to 24 months out, the data room, GST going concern, CGT concessions and post-sale ATO steps.
Subscription Compliance Checklist…
A free, copy-ready subscription compliance checklist for Australia's 1 July 2027 rules: sign-up disclosure, reminders, easy cancellation, fees and records.
Dunning Email Templates
Eight copy-ready dunning emails for failed subscription payments: card-expiry warnings, a 14-day recovery sequence, SMS and in-app banner copy that works.
Exit Survey Questions
Copy-ready cancellation exit survey questions: a one-question in-flow version, branching follow-ups, a five-question email survey and a weekly review sheet.
Price Increase Letter to Customers
Six copy-ready price increase letters and emails: monthly, annual, grandfathered, new-value, B2B and reminder versions, plus what every notice needs.
The Sean Ellis PMF Survey
The Sean Ellis test questions, ready to copy: the 40% 'very disappointed' question, Superhuman's follow-ups, segment questions and a scoring sheet.
Video Sales Letter Script Template
A fill-in video sales letter script based on the five-step VSL formula, updated for 2026: hook, rapport, problem, solution, offer, plus a 3-minute cut.
Willingness to Pay Interview Questions
A 30-minute willingness to pay interview script with 25 questions: the problem, its cost, alternatives, buying process and price probes, plus a notes sheet.
Willingness to Pay Survey
A copy-ready willingness to pay survey: screening questions, offer description, the four Van Westendorp questions, purchase intent scale and invite email.
Frequently asked questions
Are these subscription templates really free?
Yes. Every template on this site is free to copy and use in your own business. Copy the text into your email platform, survey tool or document and adapt it. The free tools are also free to use in your browser. If you'd like the thinking behind them, the Subscription Playbook ebook and audiobook are free to download too.
Can I use these templates in Mailchimp, Klaviyo, HubSpot or Stripe?
Yes. The emails are written in plain text with merge fields in square brackets, such as [First name] or [Renewal date]. Replace each bracket with your platform's own merge tag. Most billing platforms, including Stripe and Chargebee, let you customize their built-in reminder and failed-payment emails, so you can paste the wording straight into those settings.
Do the Australian templates guarantee I comply with the 2027 rules?
No template can do that. As at October 2026 the regulations setting notice timing and content weren't published, and compliance depends on your whole setup, including your sign-up flow, terms and billing. The templates reflect the Act and the official explanatory material, and they're a strong starting point. Check your final setup with your adviser or lawyer.
Should subscription emails be plain text or designed?
For anything about money, such as reminders, price changes and failed payments, plain text usually works better. It reads like a note from a person, it's easier to scan for the date and price, and it's less likely to look like marketing. Save designed templates for newsletters, launches and product updates, where visuals help tell the story.
Which template should a brand-new subscription business start with?
If you haven't set your price yet, start with the willingness-to-pay interview script and talk to ten potential customers. If you're about to launch, set up the free trial reminders and the compliance checklist (for Australian customers) before your first sign-up, then add dunning emails before your first renewal. The rest can wait until you need them.
Will you add more templates?
The library grows with the questions subscription owners ask most, and existing templates are updated as the rules change, especially once Australia's 2027 notice regulations are published. Check the updated date on each page. In the meantime, the bonus cancellation confirmation and win-back emails on this page cover two of the most common gaps.
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The Subscription Playbook (ebook + audiobook) and Feed a Starving Crowd, instantly. In Australia? Claim the free hardcover.
Robert Coorey, MBA
Robert is the author of The Subscription Playbook and Feed a Starving Crowd and a Director at BPAG Accountants in Sydney. More about Robert.
Sources
- Competition and Consumer Amendment (Unfair Trading Practices) Act 2026 (No. 64, 2026), Federal Register of Legislation
- Parliamentary Library, Bills Digest No. 58, 2025–26
- Recurly, Churn rate benchmarks (July 2026 network data; pause and win-back research)
- First Round Review, How Superhuman Built an Engine to Find Product/Market Fit
- The Subscription Playbook, Robert Coorey (2022)
- Feed a Starving Crowd, Robert Coorey (2013)
Facts and prices checked 27 October 2026. Spotted something out of date? Tell us.