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I cancelled my Calm membership. Here’s all the emails they sent me

A lesson in what not to do with CRM strategy and monetisation

Rosie Hoggmascall
UX Collective
8 min readJun 9, 2023
Calm app logo on white background

I used to love Calm. It’s no secret that working in tech can be stressful-as-hell. I’ve had panic attacks, I’ve been in tears, I’ve lost weight from stress.

In those moments, I used to turn to Calm. I’d pick up my phone, open the app and make a beeline to my favourite SOS sessions. I’d listen to bitesized meditations to calm me down.

Now, I’m in a better place. I feel happy and healthy, no more panic attacks or high stress levels. I manage my own time and clients — its bliss.

So, without the need for my painkiller — the Calm app — I cancelled my membership.

In the six months since, Calm proceeded to send me an email series to try and get me back into the app as a paying subscriber. I got discounts, web flows, free content, GIFs. Did it work? Well, let’s see.

We’ll go through the wild rollercoaster of a ride of Calm’s churner CRM series, and how they try and coax users back into the app with big discounts and web monetisation.

Day 0 of my cancellation: the standard confirmation

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Published in UX Collective

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Written by Rosie Hoggmascall

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