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Glossary

Skip vs Pause

Also known as: Skip a delivery, Pause a subscription

Skipping omits one scheduled delivery and its charge while leaving the subscription and its cadence intact, whereas pausing suspends the subscription indefinitely or until a chosen date — skip answers "not this month", pause answers "not for a while".

The distinction matters because the two solve different customer problems, and offering only one of them pushes the mismatched customers toward cancelling instead. Someone with three unopened bags of coffee wants to skip; someone travelling for two months wants to pause. Presenting a cancel button as the only alternative to receiving the next box converts a temporary situation into a permanent loss.

Skip is the lighter action and the one to offer first: the subscription keeps its schedule, the next charge simply moves on by one cycle, and nothing has to be reactivated later. Pause is the right tool when the customer cannot name a return date, and it is materially better than a cancellation because the contract and payment method survive — restarting is one click rather than a fresh checkout.

Curobi exposes both, along with cancellation, on the self-service portal on every plan, and pairs them with save offers on the Pro plan so the choice appears at the moment someone reaches for cancel.

Related terms

  • Cancellation Save Flow — A cancellation save flow is the sequence a subscriber sees when they try to cancel — presenting an alternative such as pausing, skipping a delivery, changing frequency, or a retention offer — designed to keep customers who would otherwise leave over a fixable, temporary reason.
  • Voluntary Churn — Voluntary churn is subscription cancellation caused by a customer decision — they click cancel — as opposed to a failed payment, and it is usually a response to price, to product piling up between deliveries, or to the box becoming repetitive.
  • Churn — Churn is the rate at which subscribers cancel or lapse over a given period — the share of recurring customers a business loses — and it is the single most important number in a subscription business because retained revenue compounds while churned revenue must be re-acquired.
  • Billing Cutoff — A billing cutoff is the point before a subscription renewal after which the contents of the next box are locked and can no longer be edited — it exists so the merchant can finalise picking, packing, and stock while still giving subscribers as long as possible to change their mind.

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