Part One: Strategy · The stance of the business
Making it hard to go keeps this year's revenue. People who feel trapped stop trusting the company and warn others off.
There are many ways to make leaving hard, and none of them looks like a decision. The export exists but leaves out the attachments. Cancelling means a phone call during office hours. The annual plan renews without a reminder. The data comes out in a format nothing else reads.
Each of these does hold on to a customer for a few more months, and on a chart that is retention. The cost shows up elsewhere. The customer stays and tells everyone who asks not to sign up. And the next person, deciding whether to commit their work to the product, asks what happens if it goes wrong, finds no clear answer, and puts the decision off.
That second cost is the one to watch. A way out is part of what people weigh on the way in. They try sooner when they can see the exit, and nobody likes to recommend a trap. Netflix has long printed "Cancel anytime" beside its sign-up button, and cancelling takes a few clicks on the account page.
Team software has the same door in a different place. A company on an annual contract cannot cancel on a whim, but its administrator should be able to export everything, at any time, without opening a ticket or asking an account manager. A buyer comparing suppliers will ask.
Therefore:
Let people cancel as easily as they joined, and take all of their work with them in a form another tool can use. Say so where they sign up.
In practice. Open a test account, put real work in it, and try to leave with everything. Count the steps and note what is missing from the export. Compare with the steps it took to join, and show both counts to whoever owns the flow. Then test the sign-up page with a line about leaving and without it.
Goes with. A clear exit eases the worry in FORCES FOR AND AGAINST (4) and makes A TRIAL WITH YOUR OWN WORK (32) safe to begin. A cancel button that hides breaks NO TRICKS (83).