---
title: "Getting started with Winbacks"
slug: "getting-started-with-winbacks"
updated: 2026-03-25T15:24:33Z
published: 2026-03-25T15:24:33Z
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://help.skio.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Getting started with Winbacks

## What is Winbacks?

Winbacks is a retention tool that triggers an automated outreach flow when a subscriber cancels through your [Cancel Flow](https://help.skio.com/docs/cancel-flow). After a delay you configure, Skio sends the subscriber a branded landing page with a tailored offer: a discount, a free gift, a frequency change, or a product swap—designed to lower the barrier to reactivating.

The flow is built inside a dedicated visual builder with its own guardrails, analytics, and delivery options similar to [Journeys](/help/docs/understanding-skio-journeys) and [Cancel Flows](/help/docs/getting-started-with-cancel-flows). You can route subscribers to different offers based on why they cancelled, then deliver the outreach through Skio's built-in email or your existing Klaviyo or Postscript setup.

### Why use Winbacks?

Cancellation isn't always permanent. Many subscribers cancel because of timing, price sensitivity, or product overstock, not because they've lost interest in your brand. Winbacks gives you a structured way to reach them while they're still familiar with your product, with an offer matched to their specific reason for leaving.

**Key benefits**

- **Recover cancelled subscribers** without manual segmentation or complex Klaviyo flows
- **Personalize offers by cancellation reason** so you're not giving a discount to someone who just needed a longer delivery interval
- **Avoid offer repetition** by routing subscribers away from incentives they already rejected during their Cancel Flow session
- **Track real recovery performance** with analytics built around actual reactivation events, not estimates

## How Winbacks works

A Winback flow runs in five stages:

1. **Trigger:** A subscriber completes a cancellation through your Cancel Flow. Skio captures their cancellation reason and session context at that moment.
2. **Wait:** Skio pauses for a delay period you set (anywhere from 1 hour to 90 days) before sending any outreach.
3. **Route:** A **Switch** node segments subscribers into different paths based on conditions like cancellation reason or offers they were already shown during the Cancel Flow.
4. **Offer:** Skio generates a personalized landing page for each path with the incentive you've configured.
5. **Notify:** The landing page link is delivered via Skio email or a Klaviyo/Postscript event, depending on your setup.

> [!NOTE]
> If a subscriber reactivates on their own before the delay ends, they're automatically removed from the flow and never receive the offer.

## What you can offer

Each Winback landing page can include one or more of the following incentives:

- **Discount:** A Shopify percentage or fixed-amount discount code
- **Free gift:** A $0 one-time product added to their next order
- **Frequency change:** Let subscribers switch to a longer delivery interval (e.g., every 6 weeks or every 2 months)
- **Product swap:** Allow subscribers to switch to a different or more affordable variant
- **Add a product:** Add a new item to their returning order as a one-time purchase or recurring subscription

## Notification delivery options

You have two options for sending the Winback offer:

- **Skio email:** Use the built-in rich text editor to draft and send directly from Skio—fastest path to go live
- **Klaviyo or Postscript:** Skio fires a `Skio: Winback Custom Notification` event to your connected platform, which you use to trigger a flow in Klaviyo or Postscript

## Guardrails

Winbacks includes built-in safeguards to keep your flows clean and your subscribers from receiving conflicting or outdated offers:

- **One active flow at a time:** You can only have one live Winback running per store at a time. You can create multiple drafts, but only one can be active.
- **Each subscriber enters a flow once:** A subscriber can only go through a Winback flow once, regardless of how many times they cancel.
- **Live flows are locked:** Once a Winback is active, it becomes read-only. To make changes, Skio creates a new draft version — your live flow keeps running until you publish the update.
- **Abort option:** If you need to stop a flow immediately, you can disable it for new subscribers only, or abort it entirely to invalidate all active links.