Hypertune · email

Hypertune email: what we found, what changes, and why

Leadership report · 28 September 2026

From Vinson · 28 September 2026 · for leadership. Every change below has been approved by Austin (25, 26 and 28 September calls).

The short version

- Not firing: the sign-up emails miss almost everyone, the tailored cancel emails have never sent, and the trial reminders are switched off. Nobody who leaves the checkout gets anything, and there's no renewal reminder.

- Nothing to act on: where emails did send, the button often led only to Discord. There was no link to pay, update a card or finish checkout.

What was analysed

AreaWhat we looked atDetail
Every live Klaviyo flow and campaignSends, clicks, payments that followed, settings, copy, triggersEmail report
Trial usersEveryone who tried Hypertune since November 2025, how their trial ended, whether they ran the optimizer, whether they can be emailedTrial users report
Cancellations718 answers to the in-app cancel survey from paying subscribers since 21 AugustSubscription cancelled
Yearly renewalsEvery early-bird yearly subscriber, by renewal monthEmail report, renewals
Stripe's own emails and settingsWhich emails Stripe sends, receipts on recent payments, renewals stuck on bank checksEmail plan, Stripe

What we found

1Most flow emails aren't firing, and those that do lead nowhere

FlowWhat should happenWhat actually happens
Sign-upEvery new account gets the sign-up emails49 of a random 50 people who signed up and never bought aren't in Klaviyo at all, so the flow never fires for them
TrialA short sequence through the 7-day trialOne long email built from images (2.7% click). The day 2 and day 4 emails, including "your trial ends soon", are switched off
Abandoned checkoutAn email when someone leaves the payment pageNothing. Klaviyo has recorded no checkout starts in 2026 because it never hears about them
Failed paymentGet the card updatedThe first email links only to Discord, with no button to update the card. The flow restarts on every retry, about five emails each
Trial ended, first charge failedGet a working card on fileEmails pointing to Discord, with no way to update the card. 7,055 trials ended this way and never paid
Welcome, after first paymentEvery new payerReached 87 of 159 recent payers and skipped 71
Trial and subscription cancelledAn email matched to the reason they gaveThe reason is never passed to Klaviyo, so the tailored emails have never sent and everyone gets a generic one
Yearly renewalA reminder before the chargeNo flow exists, and Stripe's own reminder is off
Trial users who never paidA win-backAbout 21,000 were suppressed and get nothing

13 more draft flows have never sent. The result: most people who could have paid got no email, or an email with nothing to click except Discord.

2Email's real contribution is small, and the reported figure overstates it

Klaviyo credits email with $1,628 in 90 days, about 1% of revenue. That counts any payment within 5 days of an email being opened, including automatic renewals, card retries and Apple Mail's automatic opens. $1,248 of it sits in the failed-payment flow: 51 payments from 5 clicks in 30 days, which is mostly Stripe retrying the card on its own. Two campaigns went out in 90 days.

Delivery is healthy: 99.6% delivered and no spam complaints. The problem is what gets sent, not whether it arrives.

3Failed payments: the biggest lever

4Yearly renewals, with nobody reminding them

1,811 subscribers are on the early-bird $47.88 yearly plan, and their first renewals start in November. That is $86,711 a year if all renew, or $69,474 without the 360 already set to cancel. Neither Klaviyo nor Stripe sends a renewal reminder: we checked Stripe's settings with Austin on 28 September. California requires notice 15 to 45 days before a yearly renewal.

Separately: Stripe's setting to email customers when their bank asks them to approve a payment (3D Secure) is off. When a renewal needs that approval, nobody is asked and the plan cancels after 7 days. That has ended 30 renewals since December.

5Abandoned checkouts

GA4 counted 2,963 checkout starts in 20 days against about 1,100 new paying subscriptions. Some are repeat attempts, but none of the people who left got an email.

6Cancellations

The tailored cancel emails have never sent (see section 1). The answers they need already exist in the in-app survey. The reasons paying subscribers give:

ReasonShare
Didn't give me performance37%
Not using it enough21%
Too expensive19%
Other17%
Ran into a bug6%

7Trial users and suppressions

32,714 people have tried Hypertune. About 21,000 who never unsubscribed were suppressed by the team in two bulk actions, on 26 June and 6 August, most likely to stay inside the Klaviyo plan's profile limit. They never got a proper win-back.

Of the 22,949 who never paid, 16,414 ran the optimizer. 7,055 didn't cancel at all: their first charge simply failed. About 480 paying customers were caught in the same suppressions, so they would have missed failed-payment and renewal emails.

8Campaigns

The 8 September campaign went to 3,213 current subscribers because a segment was built wrong. It had no exclusions and Smart Sending was off, so it could land on top of a flow email the same day. Smart Sending was off on every live email.

What changes, and why

ChangeWhyHowDetail
Start again: ten short flowsLong designed emails with several buttons weren't clickedHalf a page at most, one button, sender "Austin from Hypertune", three new layoutsEmail plan · Design brief
Failed payment rebuilt484 subscriptions lost in a monthOnce per customer per 30 days; emails on days 0, 3, 7 and 14; an "Update payment method" button in every email; wording by decline reason; Stripe retries for 14 days instead of 7; Stripe's own email switched off at go-liveCopy
Yearly renewal reminderRequired notice, and $86,711 renewing from November15 and 3 days before, with the date and amount from Stripe; live by 16 OctoberCopy
Stripe settingsDuplicate emails, and renewals failing silentlyTurn on the bank approval link and the "trial over" statement label. Receipts and expiring-card emails stay on. Renewal and trial reminders stay off because Klaviyo sends themEmail plan, Stripe
Abandoned checkoutNobody who left the checkout was followed upTwo emails, at 1 hour and day 2, with a link back to the same checkoutCopy
Sign-up and trialTrial users need to run it in the first hour; only 40% doSeparate paths for normal and trial-link sign-ups; three trial emails, including the exact trial end dateSign-up · Trial
Subscription cancelledTailored emails never sentSent when they press cancel, chosen by survey answer. A free month for "bug" and "no performance", because the product didn't work for them. 50% off next month for everyone else. One reminder 3 days before the plan endsCopy
Trial users win-backAbout 21,000 warm, suppressed leadsWaves of about 1,000 a day, starting with 4,805 recent trial users who ran the optimizer. Three emails, 50% off the first month, plain text against a short design. Stop a wave if bounces pass 2% or spam 0.1%Trial users report · Trial cancellation flow
Trustpilot review26 reviews, mostly about the old technician serviceAsked once per customer, ever: yearly after 10 days, monthly after the second payment. One campaign to the 5,534 who qualify now, with 10% held back to check cancellations, then a flow. No rewards, and nobody filtered by how happy they seemCopy
One-off activations, not regular campaignsPayers were being mailed by mistake, and more email mostly buys unsubscribesStanding segments. One email per activation, with no reminder. Payers at most once every 60 days, others once every 30. Nobody in a flow or emailed in the last 14 days. Stop at 0.5% unsubscribesEmail plan, activations
After purchaseThe old flow skipped nearly half of new payersOne welcome email: tutorial, FAQ, Discord. After that, payers get only the Trustpilot ask and account noticesCopy

Offer rules:

Who does what

WhoRoleTheir instructions
AustinApproves every changeEmail plan
GavinBuilds and tests in KlaviyoTo Gavin
KamilStripe settings and the data Klaviyo needs (renewal dates, survey answers, events, codes)To Kamil
Design teamThree reusable layouts, then every emailTo the design team
VinsonAll copy (done), build rules, and monthly measurement against StripeBuild rules

Timeline

WhenWhat
NowEverything in "What changes": the Klaviyo clean-up, the Stripe switches, the data Klaviyo needs, and every flow. Gavin builds in parallel as Kamil's data arrives. Hard deadlines inside that: the renewal reminder live by 16 October, so the first November renewals get 15 days' notice, and the failed-payment rebuild before the first renewals fail in November
27 to 30 NovemberBlack Friday, the year's one sale, to lapsed users only
After everything is liveA regular campaign plan

How we'll judge it

FlowMeasureBaseline
Failed paymentPast-due subscriptions recovered against lost, monthly412 recovered, 484 lost (22 Aug to 21 Sep)
RenewalYearly renewals paid against failedFirst renewals in November
TrialTrial users who run Hypertune in 24 hours; trial to paid40%; 15%
Abandoned checkoutCheckouts recovered through the emailed linkNone today
Win-backPayments within 14 days of the first email, against the cost of the Klaviyo plan step upNo win-back has run before
CancelCancelled customers who pay again within 30 daysSet in the first month
TrustpilotNew reviews, and 30-day cancellations against the held-back 10%26 reviews

Risks and open items