A free month offer is a retention offer you can show customers inside a cancel flow that gives them one or more billing periods free of charge. When a customer accepts it, churn.io applies a 100% discount to their subscription for the number of months you choose, so they stay subscribed without being charged. This article walks you through adding and configuring a free month offer.
Before you start
Free month offers act on a real subscription, so your billing provider must be connected for the offer to take effect when a customer accepts it. Open Integrations and confirm Stripe is connected before you publish a flow that uses this offer.
⚠️ Stripe is required to apply the offer
Without a connected Stripe integration, the offer can be designed and previewed, but it can't be applied to a live customer subscription.
Step 1: Add a free month offer to your flow
Open the flow you're editing and go to the offers area, then add a new offer and pick Free month from the list of offer types. Its description reads "Give them a free month on the house."
You can add a free month offer in either of two places:
On the main Offer step, where every customer who reaches it sees the offer.
Tied to a specific survey reason, so it only appears to customers who chose that reason for cancelling.
Step 2: Write the headline and subtext
Each offer card has a Headline and a Subtext field that customers see when the offer is presented.
Enter a Headline (up to 60 characters). If you leave it blank, the default "A gift from us" is used.
Enter a Subtext (up to 120 characters). The default is "We'd like to give you a free month."
Step 3: Choose the coupon source
Under Coupon source, decide how the free time is created in Stripe:
Auto-create — churn.io creates the free period for you automatically. This is the default.
Use existing coupon — apply a coupon you've already set up in Stripe.
Auto-create
With Auto-create selected, set the Number of free months. You can pick 1 month, 2 months, or 3 months, or choose Custom to enter any value from 1 up to 120 months.
When a customer accepts, churn.io creates a 100%-off coupon that repeats for the number of months you chose, applies it to their subscription, and then removes the temporary coupon. The customer keeps the free time and is billed normally again once it ends.
Use existing coupon
With Use existing coupon selected, choose one of your existing Stripe coupons from the Stripe coupon dropdown. The list shows each coupon's name along with its discount (for example, a percentage or a fixed amount off), so you can confirm you're selecting the right one.
If Stripe isn't connected, you'll see "Connect Stripe to use existing coupons" — connect your integration first.
If you have no coupons in Stripe, the dropdown shows "No coupons found." Create a coupon in Stripe, then return here.
💡 Tip
Use Auto-create for a quick, standard free-month gift, and Use existing coupon when you want full control over the discount terms in your own Stripe account.
Step 4: Review and publish
If anything still needs attention — for example, choosing Use existing coupon without selecting one — the offer card shows an Action needed warning. Resolve it, then save your flow and take it live so the free month offer starts appearing to cancelling customers.