It’s no secret that people have started to get exhausted by the subscription model. When ExpressVPN conducted a survey on over 4,000 people across the U.S, U.K., France, and Germany, their findings confirmed this. It turns out that 40% of people feel bogged down by the number of subscriptions they have.
Yet, despite this reality, almost every SaaS business continues to opt for a subscription model without putting some thought into the fatigue people feel. There’s nothing wrong with subscriptions as such, but they can be made more palatable to customers. Let’s find out today.
Learn to Spot the Signs of Subscription Fatigue in Your Customers
The first step in dealing with subscription fatigue is identifying it. Recent studies have found that the 18 – 24 demographic experiences the most subscription fatigue. That said, some types of subscriptions, like tiered pricing, no-contract options, and personalized content, are less frustrating for people.
Sometimes, you may be doing everything right. Maybe you found a way to make a hard fee work, or your particular combination of features and price might be great. If so, changing it up might actually cause problems. Thus, it is important that your initial objective is to look for the typical signs of subscription fatigue.
These tend to manifest in the form of paused auto-renewals. No, we don’t mean that they outright cancel their subscriptions. We’re simply referring to people who switch from auto to manual renewals. This is often a sign that the customer wishes to “keep their options open.”
If you also notice a steady decline in usage or queries regarding the refund policy, such as “Can I get a partial refund if…” or feedback such as “I love it, but I’m not sure we can afford to keep it.” That sounds like a budget excuse, but more than likely, it’s a sign of fatigue. If you notice these themes, it’s time to move to the next step.
Start Overhauling Structure and Simplifying Things
The fact is that more and more people are craving simplicity in their digital worlds. It’s easy to overlook this aspect, but today, the digital presence for even an average user is rather large. After a point, people simply want to clean out all the clutter and fluff. So, when they seek new services, they want them to be trim and efficient.
This is why even traditionally complex digital tasks like building a website have gotten more streamlined. As Hocoos notes, there are now AI website builders that get the whole creation process done in a matter of minutes. No longer do you need to sign up for some bloated web development service that charges you one fee for design, another for maintenance, and a third for hosting.
MarketingScoop notes that the messaging app Slack is a good example of this. Instead of opting for a complex collaboration software, they opted for a dead-simple chat interface. This choice of simplicity allowed the company to acquire 200,000 paying customers as of 2025.
In other words, simplicity wins when it comes to finding a deterrent for fatigue. This doesn’t just apply in SaaS dynamics but in almost every other aspect of the world.
Add More Value to the Subscription
If you wish to add more value to make your SaaS attractive and hopefully cut down on fatigue, there are two ways of doing it. The first involves simply highlighting the value that customers received from using your SaaS.
For example, informing them of how many hours they saved by using your automation tool. This reminds people why they pay for your service, which is something that people can and do forget.
The other side of offering more value involves offering additional features and services at the same price tier. Marketing and psychology play a big role here. Rather than just adding new features, you could say, “X Feature from $79.99 Tier, now included in your subscription at no additional cost.”
If that doesn’t work for you financially, then consider non-core features. For instance, you could offer them a members-only community, some sort of resource access depending on your niche, or even workshop and webinar passes.
At the same time, you want to remember the earlier point about simplicity. You might be able to come up with several features to offer your customers for added value. However, if that is going to make it bloated and messy once again, maybe take a rain check. Take some time and really think about how to create a clean digital experience for your SaaS customers.
To put it simply, digital products and services were initially loved because of their simplicity and ease of use. People moved to these products after getting exhausted by traditional business services in the real world. It would be foolish to ignore how history is repeating itself and not learn from the mistakes of the past.
So, no, you don’t have to ditch the subscription model completely. When done right, it actually serves customers very well. You just want to put in a little more thought and effort into implementation rather than slapping on a $59.99 monthly fee and calling it a day.
