The Roach Motel
"Easy to check in. Designed to make you give up trying to leave."
Combine sign-up frictionlessness with cancellation maze: account-only cancel, multi-step retention flows, hidden settings, mandatory phone calls.
Same hack. Three very different choices.
Cancellation as easy as sign-up — ideally one button in the account menu.
One extra confirmation screen with a single retention offer, equally weighted.
Phone-only cancellation, retention scripts, repeated 'are you sure?' loops.
A formula you can steal
Audit [STEPS IN] vs [STEPS OUT] → make the latter not exceed the former + 1.
Where you've already seen this
- Major newspaper digital subs requiring phone-call cancellation.
- Gym contracts requiring certified mail.
- B2B SaaS where 'downgrade' is a CSM email thread, not a button.
Never.
Anywhere — this is the textbook FTC enforcement target post the 2024 'Click-to-Cancel' rule.
Try the trick today
Open your own product. Time how long it takes to fully cancel. If it's longer than sign-up, you have a roach motel.
Free Marketing Hacked module included. See more cautionary tales and learn the playbook from the inside.