Be honest: are your onboarding emails actually getting users excited about your product?
The onboarding process is obviously make-or-break if you’re in SaaS. Either your sign-ups stick around for the long haul or those could-be users disappear into the abyss.
Meanwhile, it’s oft-cited that ~50% of SaaS users will log into an account and never return. Couple that with a ~21% open rate for software emails as of 2020, and it’s clear than sign-ups are anything but a sure thing.
But hey, it’s not all gloom and doom.
Granted you’re putting together messages that actively engage those sign-ups to take action.
In this guide, we’ll hook you up with some onboarding email templates to do exactly that.
9 onboarding email templates that pull users into your product
Below we’ve put together nine onboarding emails that are fair game for any SaaS company.
Of course, you’ll need to tweak and adapt these according to your brand voice, product and so on.
Also, you might consider swapping out or duplicating these templates based on how long your onboarding series is (think: a week versus 10 days or two weeks).
1. The welcome email
Your onboarding welcome emails are arguably the most important in your series.
After all, you’re tasked with making a meaningful first impression on your new sign-ups. You obviously want to hook them here and score that ever-so-important initial login.
Your end-game? Get your product in their hands ASAP.
Subject: Welcome to {app name}! / Let’s get started with {app name} / {app name} welcomes you / {customer name}!
Hey {user name},
Thank you for signing up for {app name} and welcome to the community!
We’re stoked to see what you’re able to {action (create, do, etc)} with our {app, tool, service}.
To get started, we recommend checking out our {quick-start guide} that’ll walk you through the basics of {app name} step-by-step. We also have a {two-minute intro video} if you’re more of a movie buff.
And if you’re ready to start {action (creating, exploring, etc)}, you can log in below!
{CTA button}
Cheers!
{signature}
Here’s a solid welcome example from Moz, doing double duty of inviting new users into their community while also highlighting some of the tools’ top features.
2. The pro-tip
Sometimes sign-ups need a bit of nudge to get started with a new SaaS tool.
Maybe they’re initially overwhelmed by your interface. Perhaps they remember signing up but need a quick refresher as to why they need your service.
And hey, you never know. There are tons of reasons why someone might have slept on your welcome message (lost among Amazon shipping notifications, deleted by accident, weird time zones, etc).
Your goal here is to highlight basic features and suggested steps to get a taste of what your software is capable of.
Subject: How to start {benefit (saving, earning, driving traffic, etc)} with {app name} / Your account is active! Now what? / Tips for taking the next step with {app name}
Hey {user name},
Need a bit of help getting started with {app name}?
Hey, we get it: there’s so much you can do!
Here are a few suggestions to get better acquainted with us (and start {seeing benefit}):
- {Action/feature #1, optional link and/or corresponding resource to help}
- {Action/feature #2, optional link and/or corresponding resource to help}
- {Action/feature #3, optional link and/or corresponding resource to help}
If you have any questions in the meantime, feel free to reach out to us at {contact}.
Cheers!
{signature}
This message from Canva highlights multiple points for users to land based on what’s relevant to their interests. Allowing users to explore specific features makes the product more actionable versus directing them to a general login page.
3. The case study suggestion
Food for thought: case studies are among the most effective types of content for B2B buyers.
Bringing up customers and case studies is a brilliant way to invite your sign-ups to feel like they’re part of a community. Highlighting use cases also makes your product seem much more actionable.
And if nothing else, these types of messages are prime for attention-grabbing subject lines that include striking stats and numbers.
Subject: How a {app name} user saved
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is an onboarding email sequence and why does it matter for SaaS businesses? An onboarding email sequence is a series of automated emails sent to new users after sign-up, designed to drive activation, reduce early churn, and turn trials into paying subscribers.For SaaS companies, the stakes are high: roughly 50% of users who sign up will log in once and never return. A well-structured onboarding sequence guides new users to their first meaningful moment with your product, which is the single biggest predictor of long-term retention. A typical onboarding email sequence for subscription businesses includes a welcome email, feature highlights, a case study or social proof email, and a trial expiration nudge. Each email should move the user one step closer to becoming an active, paying customer rather than just another churned free trial.
- What is the difference between an onboarding email and a welcome email? A welcome email is a single message confirming a new sign-up, while an onboarding email sequence is a multi-step series designed to activate users and guide them toward a subscription conversion.The welcome email is the opening move: it confirms the account, sets expectations, and gets the user to log in for the first time. The broader onboarding sequence picks up from there, covering feature education, social proof, personal check-ins, trial expiration alerts, and re-engagement for non-responders. For subscription businesses focused on improving trial-to-paid conversion rates, treating these as separate jobs is important. A great welcome email gets the click; a complete onboarding email strategy is what actually reduces early churn and builds a durable subscriber base.
- How do you write onboarding emails that improve trial-to-paid conversion for SaaS? Effective SaaS onboarding emails focus on a single action per message, highlight the feature most likely to create a habit, and are timed to match where the user is in their trial.Best practices for an onboarding email sequence that converts include:Lead with the clearest benefit, not a feature list.Send a pro-tip or feature spotlight within 48 hours if a user has not taken a key action.Use a personal-sender format for mid-sequence emails to increase open and reply rates.Add urgency with a trial expiration email 2 to 3 days before the trial ends.Leave a re-engagement email for non-responders that keeps the door open without pressure.Timing and sequence length matter. A 7-day trial needs a tighter cadence than a 14-day trial.
- How can onboarding emails be used to reduce churn in a subscription business? Onboarding emails reduce churn by closing the gap between sign-up and activation, ensuring new users reach a moment of value before their trial ends or their engagement drops.Most early churn in SaaS is not caused by pricing but by users who never fully understood the product. A strong onboarding email sequence addresses this by surfacing key features, sharing customer success stories, and prompting users to take specific actions that correlate with long-term retention. For subscription businesses tracking metrics like MRR and LTV, reducing early churn has a compounding effect on revenue. Monitoring which email touchpoints correlate with trial conversion in your analytics can help you identify which messages are actually moving the needle and which ones to cut.
- How can I measure the impact of onboarding emails on MRR and subscription revenue? You can measure the impact of onboarding emails on MRR by tracking trial-to-paid conversion rates by cohort, then correlating those cohorts with specific email engagement data.Start by segmenting new sign-ups into cohorts based on when they joined and which onboarding emails they opened or clicked. Then compare MRR contribution from high-engagement cohorts versus users who ignored the sequence. Tools like Baremetrics let you break MRR down into new MRR, expansion MRR, and churned MRR in real time, so you can see whether a change to your onboarding email strategy is translating into actual revenue improvement or just vanity metrics like open rates. Pairing email engagement data with subscription analytics gives you a much clearer picture of what is driving conversion versus what looks good in a dashboard.
- How do I track whether users from onboarding emails are actually activating and staying subscribed? Track onboarding email effectiveness by connecting email engagement events to downstream subscription metrics like activation rate, trial conversion, and churn rate by cohort.Most email platforms show opens and clicks, but those numbers do not tell you whether a user became a paying subscriber or churned in month two. The more useful signal is what happens to MRR and churn rate among users who engaged with your onboarding sequence compared to those who did not. Baremetrics surfaces churn analytics and customer-level subscription data that can help you see which user segments are converting from trial to paid and which ones are dropping off. Combining that data with your email tool lets you identify the exact touchpoints in your onboarding email sequence that correlate with long-term retention.
- What platforms can automatically recover failed payments to reduce involuntary churn from subscribers who completed onboarding? Baremetrics Recover is a failed payment recovery tool that automatically retries declined charges and sends targeted dunning emails to reduce involuntary churn for subscription businesses.Involuntary churn, where subscribers are lost not because they chose to cancel but because a payment failed, is one of the most preventable sources of MRR loss. After you have invested in a solid onboarding email sequence to convert a trial user into a paying subscriber, losing them to a failed card is avoidable. Recover integrates directly with Stripe and works automatically in the background, retrying payments on an intelligent schedule and notifying customers to update their billing details. For SaaS companies at any stage of MRR, recovering even a fraction of these failed payments has a meaningful compounding impact on net revenue retention.
Brent Barnhart
Brent Barnhart is part of the team at Statusphere, an Orlando-based innovator in consumer-to-consumer marketing, helping connect people with brands they love.