A payment processor integration connects Churn.io to your billing platform so your cancel flows can read a subscriber's plan and actually apply offers or cancellations. The short answer is: you can explore, design, and save your cancel flows without one, but you cannot take a flow Live until a payment processor is connected. This article explains exactly what works without an integration, what doesn't, and how to get connected.
What you can do without an integration
Plenty of Churn.io is available before you connect anything. Without a payment processor you can:
Create your account and set up your workspace.
Build and edit cancel flows, including surveys, retention offers, feedback, and goodbye steps.
Save flows as drafts and keep refining them.
Customize your branding and design for both the widget and the hosted cancel page.
Invite teammates and manage roles.
In other words, you can do all of your setup and design work first, then connect your payment processor when you're ready to go live.
What requires a connected payment processor
A connection is required for the parts of Churn.io that need to read or change a customer's real subscription:
Taking a flow Live. When you try to publish a flow, Churn.io checks that a payment processor is connected. If it isn't, the flow stays in draft and you'll be prompted to connect first.
Starting an A/B test. Launching an experiment between flows also requires a connected payment processor for the same reason.
⚠️ Why live flows need a connection
A live cancel flow shows real retention offers (like discounts, pauses, or free months) and can cancel real subscriptions. Without a payment processor connected, Churn.io has no way to apply those offers or process cancellations — so it blocks publishing rather than letting your flow run and silently fail in front of your customers.
Which payment processor can I connect?
Today, Stripe is the supported payment processor. Connecting Stripe lets Churn.io read subscription details and apply offers or cancellations on your behalf.
You'll see other providers listed on the Integrations page, but those are placeholders for processors planned for the future and are not yet available to connect.
How to connect Stripe
When you're ready to take a flow live, connecting takes just a couple of steps:
Go to Integrations in the sidebar.
Find Stripe and click Connect.
Choose the business you want to connect, then authorize Churn.io in Stripe.
You'll be returned to Churn.io with Stripe showing as Connected.
Only an Owner or Admin of a business can connect or disconnect a payment processor. Once Stripe is connected, you can take your flows live and start A/B tests.
💡 Design first, connect later
A good approach is to build and polish your cancel flow as a draft, fine-tune your offers and branding, and connect Stripe as the final step right before you publish. Nothing in your draft is lost while you wait to connect.
In short
Yes — you can use Churn.io to build, design, and save your cancel flows without a payment processor integration. But to publish a flow as Live or to run an A/B test, you'll need to connect Stripe first, because that's what allows Churn.io to apply offers and process cancellations for real subscribers.