The moment it happens

Know when a PayPal subscriber cancels

Each cancellation is posted so you can follow up while the customer still remembers you.

Runs: The moment it happens
Apps: PayPal
AI: Not needed
Access: REST app

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: when a PayPal subscription is cancelled, Slack me the subscriber's email and plan name in #customers.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

Add to ChatGPT Add to Claude

First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

When a recurring subscriber cancels on PayPal, they usually do it quietly. There is no conversation, no feedback and no chance to ask why. The seller sees fewer payments next month, but cannot tell which customer left or whether it was because of price, a bug or a competitor. Without that, there is nothing to learn from, and nobody to try to win back.

When PayPal reports a subscription cancellation, a message goes to Slack immediately. The team sees that someone just left, which makes it possible to send a short note asking what went wrong, to offer a pause or discount, or simply to record the loss and its date for the monthly review.

Founders of membership sites and small software products use it to keep churn visible and personal rather than a number at the end of the month.

What you get out of it

A chance to win them back
A short, human message sent the same day a customer cancels can retrieve a surprising number of them. An offer to pause or switch to a cheaper plan keeps revenue you would otherwise lose.
Honest feedback while it is fresh
People will explain why they left if asked right away, and rarely if asked a month later. Those answers show whether the issue is price, quality or something you can fix.
Churn becomes visible to everyone
Posting cancellations in a channel keeps the whole team aware of what is happening to revenue. It stops churn being something only the founder knows about and worries over alone.
Exact dates for your records
Each message is timestamped when PayPal reports the cancellation. That gives you a clean record of when each customer left, which helps when matching revenue changes to events like a price rise.
Spot waves of cancellations early
Several cancellations in a day after a price change or an outage is hard to miss in a channel. You can respond quickly instead of discovering the damage at renewal time.

How it works

What happens, step by step

When a PayPal subscriber cancels, PayPal tells ClickRuntime straight away.
ClickRuntime reads the subscriber email and the plan they were on.
A message goes to your #customers Slack channel with the subscriber's email and the plan they were on.

Before it runs live

Connect PayPal
Paste your automation's link into the other app's webhook settings

What you get

RunsThe moment it happens

Know when a PayPal subscriber cancelsjust nowSucceeded

Slack · #customersSubscription cancelled: ops@northwind.example on *Pro monthly*

Build your own

Need it to work differently?

This template is a starting point. Copy the prompt and change it, or describe a different automation from scratch, with your own conditions, more apps or an AI step. Your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.

Your own rules
Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.
Any number of apps
One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.
AI where it helps
Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.
On a schedule or on each event
Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

Changes you can ask for

Act only on the items that match your own rules, and skip the rest
Add an AI step, for example to summarize, sort or draft a reply
Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
Combine it with other PayPal steps into one automation

Under the hood

The code that runs this automation

This is the Python script that runs each time the automation starts. Your AI assistant writes it for you when you send the prompt, and you allow each step in your assistant. To change how the automation works, describe the change to your assistant and it updates the script for you. For every function it can use, see the script reference.

subscription_cancelled_alert.pyexample

from clickruntime import on_event, credentials, http, notify

API = "https://api-m.paypal.com"

def paypal_headers():
    resp = http.post(f"{API}/v1/oauth2/token", data={"grant_type": "client_credentials"},
                     auth=(credentials.secret("PAYPAL_CLIENT_ID"), credentials.secret("PAYPAL_CLIENT_SECRET")))
    resp.raise_for_status()
    return {"Authorization": f"Bearer {resp.json()['access_token']}"}

@on_event
def handle(event):
    body = event.json
    if body.get("event_type") != "BILLING.SUBSCRIPTION.CANCELLED":
        return {"posted": False}
    sub = body["resource"]
    plan = http.get(f"{API}/v1/billing/plans/{sub['plan_id']}", headers=paypal_headers()).json()
    notify.slack(f"Subscription cancelled: {sub['subscriber']['email_address']} on *{plan['name']}*",
                 channel="#customers")
    return {"subscription": sub["id"]}

FAQ

Common questions

Does it fire when PayPal cancels for failed payments?

PayPal sends different events for a customer cancelling, a suspension and an expiry. The alert is based on cancellation, so a subscription ended by the customer posts. Payment-related suspensions can be added as a separate message.

Will the message say why the person cancelled?

PayPal does not generally pass along a reason, so the message states who cancelled and when. If you want reasons, a follow-up email sent from your side can ask, using the details in the post.

Can I be told only about annual plan cancellations?

Yes. The event includes plan information that can be used to filter. Let your AI assistant know which plan or price you care about and you will see the narrower version for approval before anything changes.

What permissions does it need?

REST app. Nothing else in your accounts is used.

Does it need AI?

No. It runs without AI, so it doesn't use your plan's AI allowance.

How many runs does it use?

One run for each event the app sends.

Can I change how it works?

Yes. Describe the change to your AI assistant, for example a different schedule, channel or filter. It updates the automation, tests it and tells you what changed.

The moment it happens