The Membership Cancel page includes a shortcode that allows members to immediately cancel their membership. This post covers some alternative methods to manage or modify the default behavior of member cancellations.
Don’t want to allow members to cancel?
The default [pmpro_cancel] shortcode outputs a message and button that a member would click to cancel their account.
One of the commonly requested features is to remove this behavior and require members to contact you in order to cancel their membership.
To do this, navigate to Memberships > Page Settings and click “Edit” for the page assigned as the “Membership Cancel” page. Then, remove the [pmpro_cancel] shortcode and replace it with your desired content. You could simply put a message and a contact email address, such as:
Or, add a contact form using a plugin such as Gravity Forms, Ninja Forms, Caldera Forms, or the “Feedback” module of Jetpack.
Downgrade Membership instead of Canceling
If you offer a “free” membership level, this post includes the recipe to change a member’s level when they cancel or expire. Using this method, a member could use the default cancellation process, their paid membership level would be removed, any attached subscription at the gateway will be cancelled, and their membership level will be changed to your default (downgrade) level.
Delete the User Account
If you run a VERY tight ship and want to remove the WordPress user when they cancel their account, this post includes the recipe to do so. We don’t recommend doing this as it messes up a lot of data in Memberships > Orders. It’s also smart to maintain a list of canceled members for future marketing efforts. Perhaps you would like to invite them back at a discount or offer a new membership that wasn’t previously available. That said, there can be other reasons that you would need to delete the user account so we still want to demonstrate how this is done.
Cancel a Member Automatically After Failed Subscription Payment
This method doesn’t relate to a member canceling themselves, but rather when the gateway lets your site know that a member’s subscription payment failed. The Failed Payment Limit Add On allows you to specify a number of “tries” before the membership is cancelled.
Be sure to check with your gateway settings, as some gateways (such as Stripe) allow you to set rules related to retries and failed payments on recurring subscriptions. These can override the settings of the Failed Payment Limit Add On.
Have another creative member cancellation request?
This post has covered a few alternative / custom methods as related to member cancellations. If you have another idea on how you would like to manipulate cancellations, post a comment below or open a topic in our member forums for support on the methods described above.