SaaS Welcome Email Templates for New Customers

The templates

Each one copies with its subject line. Change the parts in brackets, and be specific about the first step: “connect your calendar” beats “explore the app” every time.

After purchase: licence key or login

Subject: Welcome to [Product]: your [licence key / login details]

Hi [Name], Thanks for buying [Product]. Here is everything you need to get started: [Your licence key: XXXX-XXXX-XXXX / You sign in with the email address you used to buy.] [Download link / Sign-in link] The one thing to do first: [the step that gets them to the useful part, for example: open the app, paste in your key and connect your calendar]. Once that is done, [what they will see or be able to do]. Everything else can wait. [Your receipt comes separately from our payment provider, so keep an eye out for it.] If anything is confusing or broken, reply to this email. It comes straight to me, and I read every one. [Your name] [Product]

After a free sign-up

Subject: Welcome to [Product]. Start here

Hi [Name], Thanks for signing up for [Product]. [You are on the free plan. / Your trial runs until date, and there is no card to add until then.] The quickest way to find out whether [Product] is useful to you: [one step, for example: import one real project you are working on this week]. It takes about [two minutes], and it shows you [the result] with your own [data / files], which is the part a demo cannot. If you get stuck, or it does not do what you expected, reply and tell me. I built it, and I would rather hear that now than never. [Your name]

Plain-text note from the founder

Subject: [Your first name] from [Product]

Hi [Name], I am [Your name], and I make [Product]. I saw you signed up [today / yesterday] and wanted to say thanks myself. One question, if you have a second: what made you look for something like [Product]? A one-line reply is plenty. I read every answer, and they shape what I build next. [Your first name]

The first-week check-in

Subject: How is [Product] going so far?

Hi [Name], You have had [Product] for about a week, so I wanted to check in. Is it doing what you hoped? If something is confusing, missing or just slightly annoying, reply and tell me. Small things are exactly what I want to hear about: they are quick to fix, and hardly anyone reports them. And if you have not had time to set it up yet, the one step worth doing first is [the first step]. [Link to a short setup guide, if you have one.] [Your name]

A team purchase or several licences

Subject: Your [number] [Product] [licences / seats], and how to share them

Hi [Name], Thanks for buying [number] [licences / seats] of [Product] for [company name / your team]. [Your licence keys are below, one per person. / You can invite your team from Settings, then Team, and each person gets their own login.] [Key 1] [Key 2] [Key 3] The first step is the same for everyone: [the first step]. You can forward this email as it is, or send them [link to the setup page]. If someone on your team gets stuck, they can write to me directly at [your email address]; they do not need to go through you. And if you need an invoice with [your company details / a VAT number] on it, reply with the details and I will send one. [Your name]

Welcome back after cancelling

Subject: Welcome back to [Product]

Hi [Name], Welcome back. Your [subscription / licence] is active again, [and everything you had before is still here / but your old data was deleted after date, so you are starting fresh]. A few things have changed since you left in [month]: [one or two changes that matter to them, ideally the one they asked for or the one they left over]. If whatever made you leave last time is still a problem, tell me. I would rather fix it now than lose you twice. [Your name]

Welcome email subject lines

The purchase welcome is the email people search for months later, when they set up a new Mac and need their key again. So put the words they will search for in the subject: the product name, and “licence key” or “login”. Save the friendlier subjects for the notes that do not carry anything they need to keep.

Welcome to [Product]: your licence key
Your [Product] login, and the one thing to do first
Welcome to [Product]. Start here
[Your first name] from [Product] (for the note from the founder)
How is [Product] going so far?
Welcome back to [Product]

What makes a welcome email work

One first step, not ten. Name the single action that gets them to the moment the product is useful, and link straight to it. A checklist of everything the app can do reads as homework, and most people do none of it.
Send it from a person. “[Your name] from [Product]” in the From field and a real signature. “The [Product] Team” tells a new customer that nobody in particular is on the other end.
A reply-to that reaches you. No noreply address. If the email goes out through your app or an email service, set its reply-to to the inbox you actually answer from. The replies to a welcome email are some of the most useful you will ever get.
Everything they need to keep, in plain text. The key, the login email, the download link. Not only behind a button, and not only in an image.
Fit it to how they arrived. A team buyer needs an invoice and a way for colleagues to get help without going through them. A returning customer needs to know whether their data survived.

And what to leave out: “We are so excited to have you on board!”, a grid of twelve features, social media icons, and “do not hesitate to reach out”. Say “reply to this email” instead; it is shorter and it is true.

The replies are the point of the email

A welcome email that invites replies gets them: a key that will not activate, a question about the yearly plan, a feature they assumed was there. They arrive in the same inbox as everything else, from people who have just paid you, and they are the conversations that decide whether a new customer is still around next month.

Moorline does not send the welcome email; your app, your billing system or you do that. It works on what comes back. Each reply stays on your list until it is dealt with and the customer has been told, and with Stripe connected their plan and payments show beside the thread, read-only, so “did my payment go through?” takes one glance. The answers you give most often in a customer’s first week make good snippets, one shortcut away in the composer, with {name} filled in as their first name. The playbook on customer support as a solo founder covers the rest of what happens after the welcome.

Questions people ask

What should a SaaS welcome email include?

What the customer needs to get in (a licence key, a login or a download link), the one step to take first, and a line saying that replying reaches a person. Sign it with a name. Everything else, such as the feature tour, the social links and the blog, can wait or be left out entirely.

What is the difference between a welcome email and an onboarding email?

The welcome email is the first one, sent the moment someone buys or signs up. Onboarding emails are the ones that follow in the first days or weeks, each nudging the customer toward one step they have not taken yet. For a small product the welcome email often is the onboarding: one step, one person, one address that answers, and a check-in a week later.

How many onboarding emails should I send a new customer?

For a small software product, two or three in the first couple of weeks is plenty: the welcome, a check-in around the end of the first week, and at most one more if they have not taken the first step. If you can tell what they have already done, skip the emails that ask them to do it. A long drip of feature announcements mostly teaches people to stop opening your mail.

Should a welcome email come from the founder or the company?

From a person. If you are the one answering support, put your name in the From field and sign it yourself. It is honest, it is what makes people reply, and a reply to "The Team" at a noreply address goes nowhere. Keep the company name in the subject or the signature so the email is recognisable.

Should a welcome email be plain text or HTML?

Plain text, or HTML that looks almost like plain text, for anything signed by a person: it reads like an email someone wrote, which is what it is meant to be. A purchase email can be designed, but put the licence key or login in the body as plain text, not only inside an image or behind a button, so it survives being forwarded and searched for months later.