Exit Survey Questions: A 30-Question Bank

An exit survey has one job: tell you why this subscriber is leaving, in time to do something about it — or to learn something true when you cannot. This bank gives you 30 questions organised by what they reveal, each with its format and the action its answers should trigger. You will never show all 30. A good cancel flow shows one screen with no more than five choices, tailored where possible, and always leaves the exit visible. Pick the questions that match the saves you are actually able to make. For how the survey sits inside the wider flow, see our roundup of the best exit survey tools and the flow patterns in best cancel flow software.

Survey design rules before you pick questions

• One screen, five choices maximum. The first question should be a single-choice reason list. Detail comes from one follow-up, not from a form.
• Always an exit. A "continue cancelling" path must be visible on every screen. Hiding it converts a survey into a trap, and subscribers respond by disputing charges instead of answering questions. Several of the costliest patterns are catalogued in cancel flow mistakes.
• Route answers to actions. Every answer option must map to something: an offer, a support path, a product fix, or a respectful exit. An answer you cannot act on is a question you should not ask.
• One open-text field, optional. Place it last, label it "Anything else we should know?", and never require it.
• Payment problems are not objections. If the answer reveals a billing problem, route to card update and recovery — not to a discount.

Price and value questions

#	Question	Format	Act on it by
1	Is price the main reason you're leaving?	Single choice (Yes / Partly / No)	If yes or partly, route to the Discount save offer.
2	How would you describe the value for what you pay?	Single choice (Great / Fair / Poor)	Poor ratings with low usage route to a smaller plan or Pause, not a blanket discount.
3	Did a recent price change affect your decision?	Single choice (Yes / No)	Yes answers tag the account for pricing-change impact reporting.
4	Would a lower-priced plan with fewer features work for you?	Single choice (Yes / Show me / No)	Yes routes to the downgrade or Service offer screen.
5	Is this about cost right now, or cost in general?	Single choice (Right now / In general)	"Right now" routes to Pause; "in general" routes to Discount.
6	What would the subscription need to include to feel worth it?	Open text	Mine monthly for the most-named missing item; feed to product planning.

Product and fit questions

#	Question	Format	Act on it by
7	Did the product do what you bought it to do?	Single choice (Yes / Partly / No)	No answers get a Service offer — a human reviews the account before exit.
8	What were you hoping it would do that it doesn't?	Open text	Tag by theme; recurring themes become roadmap input, not save scripts.
9	Was anything hard to use or confusing?	Single choice + optional open text	Route to onboarding help or a guided setup session offer.
10	How often did you actually use it?	Single choice (Daily / Weekly / Rarely / Never)	Rarely and Never route to Pause; frequent users get a conversation, not a coupon.
11	Did you get the result you signed up for?	Single choice (Yes / Not yet / No)	"Not yet" routes to a Service offer with a concrete next step.
12	Was something missing that you needed?	Single choice (Feature / Content / Support / Integrations)	Match to your published roadmap where honest; never promise unshipped work as a save.

Timing and life questions

#	Question	Format	Act on it by
13	Is this goodbye, or just a break?	Single choice (Goodbye / A break)	Break routes straight to the Pause offer with a clear restart date.
14	Has something changed for you recently?	Single choice (Budget / Work / Family / Other)	Any answer routes to Pause first, discount second.
15	Is this the wrong season or time of year for this?	Single choice (Yes / No)	Yes routes to a Pause timed to the season's end.
16	Do you have too much of this right now (stock, content, bookings)?	Single choice (Yes / No)	Yes routes to a skip or Pause, which fits surplus better than a price cut.
17	When might this be useful to you again?	Single choice (1 month / 3 months / 6+ months / Never)	Any dated answer sets the winback timing and the pause length offered.
18	Would pausing instead of cancelling work?	Single choice (Yes / No)	Yes completes the save as a Pause; No proceeds to exit with no further offers.

Service and experience questions

#	Question	Format	Act on it by
19	Did a problem with our service affect your decision?	Single choice (Yes / No)	Yes routes to the Service offer — a named human follows up.
20	How was the support you received, if you contacted us?	Single choice (Great / Okay / Poor / Never contacted)	Poor ratings create a support review ticket before the cancellation completes.
21	Was there a mistake on our side we never fixed?	Open text	Read every answer weekly; fix-and-apologise cases go to a human, not automation.
22	Did anything about billing or payments frustrate you?	Single choice (Yes / No) + optional text	Yes routes to billing support review; check the account for failed-payment history.

Competitor switch questions

#	Question	Format	Act on it by
23	Are you switching to another provider?	Single choice (Yes / No / Not yet)	Yes opens question 24; No skips straight to confirmation.
24	Which one?	Open text or short list + Other	Log for competitive tracking; never argue with the answer in-flow.
25	What does the other option give you that we don't?	Open text	Theme-tag monthly; this is your highest-signal product feedback.
26	Is the switch mainly about price?	Single choice (Yes / No)	Yes may route to Discount once; No exits respectfully — a feature loss is rarely saved by price.

Payment problem questions

These four exist to catch subscribers who are not really cancelling — their payment failed, or they are cancelling pre-emptively because they expect it to. They route to recovery, never to offers. Discounting a billing problem wastes margin and fixes nothing.

#	Question	Format	Act on it by
27	Are you cancelling because a payment failed or a card changed?	Single choice (Yes / No)	Yes routes directly to the card-update page with access preserved.
28	Did you know your last payment didn't go through?	Single choice (Yes / No, I didn't)	"Didn't know" flags a dunning-visibility gap — check that recovery emails were delivered.
29	Would updating your payment method solve this?	Single choice (Yes / No)	Yes routes to card update; No continues the survey to find the real reason.
30	Is the card on file shared with someone else (partner, family, finance team)?	Single choice (Yes / No)	Yes suggests sending the update request to the cardholder as well; shared cards are a common silent failure.

Routing answers to offers

Keep the routing table where your whole team can see it, and review it against the cancel save offer matrix whenever you change an offer. The discipline is simple: price answers earn the Discount offer, timing answers earn Pause, service and product answers earn a Service conversation, competitor answers earn at most one honest counterpoint, and payment answers earn a card-update link. One answer, one offer, then a clean exit either way. Subscribers who see an offer matched to the reason they just gave feel heard. Subscribers who see a generic discount after explaining a product gap learn that the survey was decoration.

The bottom line

Thirty questions is a bank, not a form. Choose the five that match the reasons your subscribers actually leave and the saves you can honestly deliver, write the routing before you write the copy, and read the open-text answers every week. A short survey that drives real actions will teach you more in a month than a long one that drives none.

Frequently asked questions

How many questions should an exit survey actually show?

Show one primary reason question with no more than five answer choices, plus at most one follow-up matched to the answer and one optional open-text field. Every additional screen costs completions and goodwill. The thirty questions in this bank are a selection pool — choose the few that match the reasons your subscribers actually leave.

Should exit survey questions be multiple choice or open text?

Use single-choice questions for routing, because a structured answer can trigger an offer, a support path, or a recovery flow automatically. Keep one optional open-text field at the end for the reasons your choices did not anticipate, and read those answers regularly — they are where new answer options and product fixes come from.

What do I do when someone selects a payment problem?

Route them to fixing the payment, not to an offer. Show the card-update path, preserve their access while recovery runs, and make sure dunning messages are actually reaching them. A discount cannot fix an expired card, and offering one teaches the subscriber that billing problems produce price cuts.

Should I offer a discount to everyone who cancels?

No. Match the offer to the stated reason: discount for price, pause for timing, and a service conversation for product or support problems. A universal discount trains subscribers to threaten cancellation for a lower price, spends margin on people who were leaving for unrelated reasons, and still fails to save the ones a matched offer would have kept.

How often should I review exit survey answers?

Review counts weekly to spot sudden shifts, and read the open-text answers in full at least monthly. Tag them by theme and compare against your routing: if a common answer has no action attached, either build the action or remove the question. A survey whose answers change nothing quickly stops being answered honestly.

Related reading: Exit survey email templates · Churn interview guide