Updated: May 5, 2025- 13 min read
Sunsetting a product isn’t a failure. It’s part of building things that matter. Every product has a lifecycle, and eventually, that cycle ends.
Maybe usage has dropped off. Maybe your team is stretched too thin. Maybe the product no longer fits your product strategy. Whatever the reason, knowing when and how to sunset a product is just as important as knowing how to launch a product.
In this guide, we’ll break down what sunsetting a product really means, how to recognize when it’s time, and how to do it thoughtfully — without burning bridges with your users. We'll also look at real examples and share practical steps to help you lead the process with clarity and confidence.
The Product Book
Product School's Amazon #1 bestseller teaches you how to become a great Product Manager!
Download your copy
What Does It Mean to Sunset a Product?
Sunsetting a product means intentionally retiring an End-of-life Product from the market. It’s the process of winding down product development, support, and availability. It usually happens after a product has reached the end of its useful life, no longer fits the company’s strategy, or stops delivering value to customers.
But sunsetting technology isn’t as simple as pulling the plug. It’s a multi-step decision that involves planning, communication, and cross-functional collaboration.
The goal is to phase out the product responsibly, minimizing disruption for users, supporting internal teams, and keeping your brand’s reputation intact. Sunsetting is often a natural outcome of product lifecycle management and portfolio management.
Real-life example: Microsoft Sunsets Skype
Microsoft acquired Skype in 2011, determined to reinvent global voice and video communication. It launched across Windows, offered mobile apps, and briefly stood at the forefront of digital calling. Yet as Microsoft Teams gained prominence and new competitors like Zoom entered the market, Skype usage steadily declined and the service no longer felt central to Microsoft’s collaboration strategy.
Microsoft began phasing Skype out of consumer products, announcing it would fully shut down on May 5th, 2025. “Skype was a reminder of a bygone era and a source of inspiration for many,” noted The Guardian, reflecting on how it once bridged vast distances at a time when affordable international calling was still rare.
Just because it no longer fits into Microsoft’s evolving strategy doesn’t make Skype a failure. As a former user quoted in the same Guardian article put it:
“I think we take for granted how revolutionary Skype was. A futurist utopia always included video calling, and that was ubiquitous by 2005 thanks to Skype. I proposed marriage through it to a long-distance girlfriend in 2008…memories of our multi-hour sessions still give me a sense of melancholy as strong as any other moments of lost young love.”
Another example of product sunsetting: Google Inbox
Google Inbox is another example. It was launched in 2014 as an experimental email app meant to rethink how we interact with email. It bundled messages, highlighted key info, and integrated reminders. It gained a loyal user base, but over time, many of its features were gradually merged into Gmail.
By 2019, Google sunsetted Inbox, citing a desire to focus its efforts on a single email product.
Was it unpopular? No. Was it broken? Not really. But it no longer made sense to maintain two overlapping products. It’s a case of product strategy evolving, and resources being redirected toward higher-priority bets.
For product managers, decisions like these often come down to a combination of data (usage, user retention, growth), customer feedback, cost to maintain, and alignment with long-term product vision. This is where concepts like product-market fit, roadmapping, and opportunity cost become critical to decision-making.
How to Know When It’s Time to Sunset a Product
No one wants to give up on a product too early or too late. But recognizing when to sunset a product is part of responsible product leadership. It’s not just about performance metrics. It’s about strategic alignment, opportunity cost, and whether the product is still earning its place in your roadmap.
1. Usage is consistently declining
“We need to create a differentiated experience. Otherwise, we might as well not have our own presence.”
— Tricia Maia, Head of Product at TED, on The Product Podcast
If user engagement, user retention, or active usage is dropping, and you’ve already tried to fix it, it’s a red flag. Especially if you notice that even your most loyal users are leaving. This often shows the product no longer solves a meaningful problem or has been replaced by better alternatives.
2. The product no longer fits your strategy
Product mix evolves. What made sense three years ago might be a distraction today. If a product no longer aligns with your product vision, target market, or growth strategy, keeping it alive might cost you more than you realize.
3. It drains more resources than it earns
Maintenance, bug fixes, customer support, compliance — all of this takes time and money. When a product starts eating up engineering or support bandwidth without contributing much in return, it's time to ask whether those resources could be better used elsewhere.
4. You're duplicating effort across products
This happens often in product-led organizations that move fast. Two products might start overlapping. Maybe you’ve launched a better version of a feature set in a newer product. Continuing to support both means doubling the complexity, without doubling the value.
5. There’s a clear successor in place
Sometimes, sunsetting isn’t just about removing a product. It’s about helping users transition to something better. If you’ve built or acquired a product that solves the same problem more effectively, guiding users toward it can be the right move.
6. Customer feedback tells you it’s time
If your users are frustrated by lack of updates, poor UX, or missing features — and there’s no business case to improve it — it’s better to retire the product with transparency than to keep it limping along.
What Are the Phases of Sunsetting a Product?
Sunsetting a product is a structured process. When done right, it protects your brand, respects your users, and frees your team to focus on the future.
Here’s how to approach it step by step:
1. Evaluate and align internally
Before you sunset anything, you need to be absolutely sure it’s the right move. This phase is about gathering the right data, asking the hard questions, and making the decision with cross-functional alignment.
Start with a health check:
Look at product performance holistically—not just one lagging metric. You want a combination of:
Usage trends: Daily/monthly active users, session frequency, feature adoption
Customer feedback: Support tickets, NPS, complaints, feature requests
Revenue impact: How much ARR or MRR does it drive? Are margins shrinking?
Cost to maintain: Engineering hours, infrastructure costs, support burden, compliance overhead
Strategic relevance: Is it still tied to your company’s core value proposition or mission?
Use a product scorecard if you already have one in place. This lets you evaluate the product across multiple dimensions — Customer, Financial, Strategic Fit, Operational Complexity — so the decision isn’t emotional or reactive.
Ask these strategic questions:
If this product didn’t exist today, would we build it?
Are we cannibalizing our own product roadmap to keep it alive?
Could this effort be redirected toward a higher-leverage opportunity?
Get leadership buy-in early:
Sunsetting a product is a big decision — it affects product, engineering, support, marketing, sales, legal, and customer success. Before moving forward, get clear approval from product leadership.
Once there’s alignment at the top, loop in department leads to surface dependencies, risks, and concerns.
You’ll also want leadership fully briefed and on board in case the sunset triggers strong customer reactions or a temporary churn spike. When that happens, internal alignment helps you stay steady and focused.
2. Plan the sunset
Once the decision is made, don’t rush execution. Treat sunsetting like a mini product launch plan — one with its own roadmap, milestones, comms strategy, and OKRs.
Set a realistic timeline:
Most product sunsets take 3 to 12 months, depending on complexity. A typical timeline that you should communicate internally includes:
Announcement date
Last date for new users
Final feature update
Data export deadline
Official shutdown date
The more embedded your product is in your users’ workflows, the longer runway they’ll need.
Design the offboarding experience:
You’re not just taking something away — you’re guiding users through change. Consider:
Will you offer a migration path to another product?
Will you provide refunds, credits, or discounts?
Do users need a way to export their data?
Will you support the product in a limited state after shutdown (e.g., view-only mode)?
Map internal dependencies:
Your product may be powering other tools or features. Conduct a quick technical audit to identify shared systems, APIs, authentication layers, or billing tools that might be affected. Don’t let a legacy feature bring down something mission-critical.
Assign clear owners:
Every part of the plan should have a DRI (directly responsible individual). For example:
Product owner → oversees the sunset process
Engineering lead → manages the shutdown of infrastructure
Support lead → coordinates user communications and help docs
Marketing or Comms → crafts and schedules product messaging
3. Communicate with customers
This is where most product sunsets either go smoothly or fall apart.
Even if the decision makes perfect sense internally, how you handle the communication externally will shape how your customers remember the product experience. Your goal is to be transparent, empathetic, and helpful every step of the way.
Here’s how to do that without alienating your customers:
Be honest, early, and clear. The worst thing you can do is surprise your users or confuse them. Tell them:
What’s happening: Be direct. Say you’re sunsetting the product.
Why it’s happening: Share your rationale in a way that makes sense to them (e.g., focusing efforts on building something better, low usage, technical limitations).
When it’s happening: Include key dates—end of support, data export deadline, shutdown date.
What they need to do: Spell out their next steps with links to relevant resources.
You don’t need to over-apologize, but you do need to show that you’ve thought about their experience.
Segment and personalize your messaging
Not every user needs the same message. Tailor communication based on:
Activity level: Active users will care a lot more than dormant ones.
Account type: Free users may need simple notices. Paying or enterprise customers may require 1:1 outreach.
Use case: Some customers may rely on specific features you’re removing — flag these in advance and offer alternatives.
Use product data wisely here. If your CRM or product analytics tool supports segmentation, use it to time and tailor your emails or in-app messages.
Offer support (and a path forward)
People don’t just need information — they need help.
Create a sunset landing page with FAQs, timelines, and transition guides.
Offer data export tools or a guided export flow inside the product.
If possible, point users toward a better solution—whether that’s another product you offer or a recommended third-party tool.
Consider offering discounts, credits, or incentives to migrate to a newer solution, especially if the sunset affects paid plans.
Communicate across channels
Don’t rely on just one email. Reach users where they’re already active:
In-app banners or messages
Customer newsletters
Help center articles
Account manager outreach (for B2B or enterprise clients)
Social media or community forums (if relevant)
And don’t make it a one-and-done announcement. Plan a communication cadence. Reminders at 90, 60, 30, and 7 days out are often appreciated.
Stay available and human
Some users will be upset. That’s okay. What matters is that they feel heard.
Offer live support during the transition period
Monitor responses on email and social media
Respond quickly and respectfully, even to frustration
One underrated tactic? Thank your users. Especially the early adopters and power users. They gave your product life, and they deserve your respect on the way out.
4. Execute the sunset
Once the plan is in motion and customers are informed, it’s time to carry it out — calmly, cleanly, and with discipline. Execution is where attention to detail matters most.
Disable new signups or purchases
This is usually your first step. Preventing new users from joining or paying helps contain the impact and sets expectations. If you allow users to continue signing up after the sunset is announced, you risk confusion and frustration.
Reduce functionality in stages
Don’t yank everything all at once. Gradually turning off non-critical features helps users adapt and gives your product team a chance to test each step of the shutdown process. For example, you might start by disabling integrations, then remove editing capabilities, and finally switch to a read-only state before full deactivation.
Monitor user activity and sentiment
Keep an eye on key metrics, usage patterns, and support channels. Are users trying to access features you’ve already disabled? Are they confused about the timeline? Use this feedback to update your help docs, tweak messaging, or fix overlooked bugs in the offboarding experience.
Have a rollback plan (just in case)
Even if everything looks good in staging, things can go wrong during sunset. Bugs, unexpected dependencies, or customer backlash can derail execution. It’s wise to build in checkpoints and prepare a short-term rollback option, just in case something breaks that shouldn’t.
Track internal progress and timelines
Just like with a product launch, a sunset should have a project manager — or a product manager acting as one — tracking milestones, cross-team coordination, and completion. The engineering team needs clarity on shutdown tasks. Support and marketing need to stay updated as user questions roll in.
5. Wrap up and reflect
Once the product is officially retired, you’re not quite done. There’s still value to be extracted from the process, both for your team and your company.
Run a post-sunset retrospective
Gather your cross-functional team and review what went well and what could’ve been better. Did users have the information they needed? Was the timeline realistic? Did anything break unexpectedly? This isn’t just about technical execution. It’s about communication, customer sentiment, and internal alignment.
Share learnings company-wide
Other product teams can benefit from what you’ve learned. Consider writing a short internal doc or presentation that covers the sunset process, key metrics (retention, churn, support volume), and what you’d do differently next time.
Review customer impact and relationship health
Check in with your Customer Success team or CRM to see how the sunset affected long-term customer relationships. Did users migrate to another product in your ecosystem? Did you lose key accounts? Use this data to guide future strategic bets.
Thank your users and team in a product sunset announcement
Ending a product’s life is rarely easy — especially for the people who built and supported it. A sincere thank-you goes a long way, both internally and externally. For some customers, this product might have been their introduction to your brand. Ending on a good note keeps the door open for future relationships.
Sunsetting a Product Is Part of Strong Product Leadership
Not every product is meant to last forever and that’s okay.
Sunsetting a product isn’t a sign of failure. It’s a strategic decision that frees your team to focus on what matters most. When done thoughtfully, it strengthens your customer relationships instead of breaking them.
The key is to approach it like any other product decision: with empathy, clarity, and discipline. Communicate early. Plan carefully. And never forget that the way you close one chapter shapes how users feel about what comes next.
Because great product teams aren’t just great at building — they’re great at letting go, too.
Enroll in Product School's Product Strategy Micro-Certification (PSC)™️
The difference between a good and a great product lies in your Product Strategy, answering vital questions like: Who's the product for? What benefits does it offer? How does it further company objectives?
Enroll for Free
Updated: May 5, 2025
