How do I cancel a subscription?

The hard part is usually finding who takes the money. A subscription bought through an app store is cancelled there, not on the company's website, and cancelling in the wrong place leaves the payment running while you believe it has stopped.

What you'll need

• Bank or card statement
• Account login (optional)

Step by step

1. Find out who is actually taking the payment.Look at the statement entry. If it says Apple, Google or Amazon, cancel through that store — the company's own website cannot stop it.
2. For app store subscriptions, go to the store's subscription list.iPhone: Settings, your name, Subscriptions. Android: Play Store, Payments and subscriptions. Everything you pay for through the store is listed together.
3. For direct subscriptions, log in and look under Account, Billing or Plan.The cancel option is frequently buried under 'manage plan' or requires clicking through a retention offer first.
4. Take a screenshot of the confirmation.Note the date and any reference number. This is what you need if the payment continues.
5. If there is no cancel option, email or write and state it plainly.'I am cancelling my subscription with effect from [date]' plus your account reference. Keep a copy. Many services are legally required to accept this.
6. Check your next statement to confirm it stopped.This is the step people skip. A confirmation email is not the same as a stopped payment.
7. Cancel the continuous payment authority with your bank if it continues.Card subscriptions are usually a continuous payment authority, and your bank must stop it if you instruct them, regardless of what the company says.
8. Check for annual renewals you have forgotten.Scan twelve months of statements, not one. Annual subscriptions are the ones that go unnoticed for years.

Tips

• Free trials are the main source of unwanted subscriptions. Set a calendar reminder for two days before any trial ends, at the moment you sign up.
• A virtual or single-use card number for trials means the payment simply fails if you forget to cancel.
• Cancelling usually keeps access until the end of the paid period, so there is no reason to delay cancelling until the last day.

Common mistakes

• Deleting the app instead of cancelling — The subscription is billing independently of whether the app is installed and will continue indefinitely.
• Cancelling on the company's website when the store takes the payment — The company cannot stop a payment it does not collect. Nothing changes.
• Not checking the next statement — Failed cancellations are common, and the sooner you catch one the easier the refund conversation is.

Questions people ask