Quick answer: Cancel where you originally subscribed. If it was through Apple, use Settings → your name → Subscriptions on iPhone. If through Google, use play.google.com/store/account/subscriptions. If you signed up on a company’s website, cancel in that account’s billing settings, then check your card statement next month.
Key Takeaways
- Cancel where you subscribed: Apple, Google Play, or the merchant
- Deleting an app does not cancel the subscription
- Keep the cancellation confirmation
- Dispute with your card issuer if charges continue
Step 1: Identify the biller
Look at the descriptor on your bank or card statement. “APPLE.COM/BILL” means Apple; “GOOGLE *service” means Google Play; otherwise it is the merchant directly.
Cancel through Apple
Settings → tap your name → Subscriptions → select the service → Cancel Subscription. You keep access until the end of the paid period.
Cancel through Google Play
Open the Play Store → profile icon → Payments and subscriptions → Subscriptions → select → Cancel. Deleting the app does not cancel the subscription.
Cancel with the company directly
Log in on a desktop browser (mobile apps often hide the option), go to Account or Billing, and look for Cancel or Manage plan. If no option exists, use live chat or email and ask for written confirmation.
If the charges continue
- Keep your cancellation confirmation and dates.
- Contact the merchant first with the evidence.
- If unresolved, dispute the charge with your card issuer.
- As a last resort, ask your issuer to block the merchant or reissue the card.
Preventing surprise renewals
Set a calendar reminder a few days before free trials end, and consider virtual card numbers that you can lock or set spending limits on.
FAQ
Will I get a refund for the current period? Usually not; you keep access until the period ends. Apple and Google refund policies are case by case.
Is there a law that makes cancelling easier? Several states and the FTC have “click-to-cancel” rules requiring cancellation to be as easy as signup; enforcement varies.
What if the company has gone out of business? Dispute the charge with your card issuer.
Free trials are where most unwanted charges begin
Nearly every surprise subscription starts as a trial. Companies must disclose that a trial converts and what it will cost, but the disclosure is routinely placed where nobody reads it.
The habit that solves this permanently: at the moment you start a trial, cancel it immediately. With Apple and Google subscriptions, cancelling on day one still gives you the full trial period, and the subscription simply does not renew. For merchants that require a phone call to cancel, make the call during the trial and request written confirmation by email.
Also watch for small verification charges of $0 or $1 at signup. These are legitimate card authorizations, but they confirm that a payment method is attached and a full charge is coming.
Cancelling for someone else, or after a death
Subscriptions in a relative’s name are a common source of ongoing charges after a hospitalization or death, and the process differs from cancelling your own.
Generally you need authorization or legal authority, such as a power of attorney or letters of administration for an estate, to cancel accounts in someone else’s name. Many companies will stop billing on presentation of a death certificate.
The faster practical route is to work from the payment source rather than merchant by merchant. Notifying the bank or closing the card stops the money immediately, and you can then work through the statement line by line at a less urgent pace. Apple and Google both have processes for closing a deceased person’s account, and family sharing plans let the organizer remove members along with their subscriptions.
When charges continue after you cancelled
This happens more often than it should, and the sequence for resolving it matters.
Start with the cancellation confirmation and the exact date. Contact the merchant first with that evidence and request a refund of post-cancellation charges; many refund without argument because the alternative is a chargeback, which costs them a fee. If that fails, dispute with your card issuer using the reason code for a cancelled recurring transaction, attaching the confirmation.
As a last resort you can ask the issuer to block the merchant or reissue the card. One caveat that surprises people: card networks operate account updater services that automatically pass new card numbers to merchants with recurring billing, so a replacement card does not reliably stop charges. Cancelling with the merchant remains necessary.
Finding subscriptions you have forgotten
The average household underestimates its recurring spending, mostly because charges are small and spread across billers.
Check four places. Apple: Settings, your name, Subscriptions. Google: Play Store, profile, Payments and subscriptions. PayPal: Settings, Payments, Automatic payments, which holds recurring billing agreements that do not appear anywhere else. And your last three months of card and bank statements, read line by line, looking for identical amounts recurring monthly or annually.
Annual subscriptions are the ones most often missed precisely because they appear once a year, long after you forgot signing up.
Rules that are shifting in your favor
The Federal Trade Commission and several states have adopted click-to-cancel and automatic-renewal rules requiring that cancellation be at least as easy as signup and that renewal terms be clearly disclosed. Enforcement and specifics continue to evolve, and litigation has affected the timeline of some provisions.
Practically, this means that if a company makes cancellation unreasonably difficult, requiring a phone call for a service you signed up for in two clicks, or routing you through retention offers that never end, you have grounds for a complaint. Document the attempts with screenshots and timestamps, then file with the FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov or your state attorney general. Those complaints are also useful evidence if you subsequently dispute the charges.
Sources
Last updated: August 16, 2026. Written by the InfoBrief Editorial team. We link to official government and company sources and update articles when facts change. See our disclosure.