The situation
The current subscription sign-up and cancellation flow
A language-learning app sells monthly and annual subscriptions to consumers in Germany through its website. Today, cancelling means logging in, finding the account settings and answering a five-question survey with a retention offer. Customer support has started receiving letters from German consumer lawyers.
The product lead needs requirements the designers can build from: what the cancellation entry point must look like, which details may be asked for, what the confirmation page must show and what must happen afterwards. The same rules also affect how long the annual plan can run and how it renews.
What the research has to settle
The rules behind the answer
- A cancellation button is required
- German law requires businesses that let consumers take out subscriptions through a website to provide a cancellation button, labelled with the prescribed or equally clear wording, that is permanently available and directly and easily accessible.
- A confirmation page with set content
- The button leads to a confirmation page where the consumer gives the details needed to identify the contract and the cancellation, and confirms with a second clearly labelled button. The business must confirm receipt immediately in text form.
- Non-compliance lets consumers cancel at any time
- If the button and the page do not meet the requirements, the consumer can terminate the contract at any time without notice.
- Term and renewal are limited too
- In consumer standard terms, an initial term of more than two years is generally invalid, and automatic renewal is limited to an indefinite term that the consumer can end with at most one month’s notice.
How it runs in azta
From the question to the document
The question, as you would type it
Language-learning app sells monthly and annual subscriptions to German consumers on our website. Cancelling currently requires a login and a five-question survey. What must the cancellation button and confirmation page include under German law, may we require a login or a survey, and what happens if we get it wrong?
You start with
The current subscription sign-up and cancellation flow
- 01
Describe the flow
Walk through how customers sign up, renew and cancel today. azta searches the German Civil Code provisions on online cancellation and contract terms.
Cited research· Free - 02
Find the decisions on the button
Ask how German courts have applied the button rules, such as login requirements or extra steps. azta summarises the decisions with links to the full text.
Case-law search - 03
Write the requirements
Ask for a requirements note in the order of the flow, each requirement with its source. Edit it in Canvas.
Canvas · Ask azta· Pro - 04
Hand it to design
Export the note to Word for the design team and attach it to the ticket.
Word export· Pro You send
A requirements note for the product team on the cancellation flow
What you get
A requirements note for the product team on the cancellation flow
Requirements note · draft
Cancellation flow for German customers: requirements
Entry point. Add a cancellation button, labelled with the wording the law prescribes or equally clear wording, on every page of the website. Make it reachable without logging in, which is the safer reading of the accessibility requirement. It leads directly to the confirmation page.
Confirmation page. Ask only for the details needed to identify the customer and the contract: name, email, the subscription and the termination date. The survey and the retention offer move out of the cancellation path. A second button, clearly labelled to confirm the cancellation, completes it.
After cancellation. Send an immediate email confirming the content and date of the cancellation and the date the contract ends. Annual plans renew only into a rolling plan that the customer can end with one month’s notice.
Outcomes on your numbers
What azta is worth on this task
Pro pays for itself after
18 minutes a month
At €90 an hour, that is all the time Pro (€27 a month) has to take off your desk to cover its price.
Example figures. Replace them with your own.
- Hours back a year
- 13
- Capacity at your rate
- €1,134
- More compliance requirement notes a quarter
- 0.8
- Return on Pro
- 3.5×
- Research
- Drafting
- Your review
A scenario you set, not a promise. The hours that come back go to another client, or deeper into this one.
Want these numbers on your team’s real workload?
Book a demoWhat stays with you
- The design of the flow.
- Retention offers outside the cancellation path.
- Testing the flow before release.
Frequently asked questions
- Do the rules apply to app-store subscriptions?
- Ask with the facts. The button duty attaches to contracts concluded through the business’s own website, and subscriptions billed by an app store raise a different question.
- Do other countries have similar rules?
- Some have their own rules on online cancellation and renewal. Name the country and azta researches its law.
- Does azta review our screens?
- Describe the flow or upload the text of each step, and ask. azta checks it against the requirements and cites them. Testing the live flow stays with your team.
