How to cancel a subscription on iPhone

Cancelling a subscription on iPhone takes about thirty seconds once you know where to look — and there's a separate trick for subscriptions that aren't billed through Apple. It's worth doing: people collectively waste an estimated $205 a year on subscriptions they no longer use¹, much of it from trials and renewals that slipped past. Here's how to cancel anything, cleanly.

Cancel an App Store subscription

This covers most subscriptions you signed up for inside an app:

1. Open Settings and tap your name at the top.
2. Tap Subscriptions.
3. Tap the subscription you want to stop.
4. Tap Cancel Subscription. (No Cancel button? It's already cancelled or not billed by Apple — see below.)

Cancel a free trial before it charges you

Cancelling a trial keeps your access until the trial ends — you lose nothing by cancelling early. To be safe, cancel at least 24 hours before it ends, because Apple processes renewals slightly ahead of the deadline. Best habit: cancel the moment you start a trial, then enjoy it until it lapses.

What if there's no "Cancel" button?

If a subscription isn't in your Apple list, it's billed directly by the company, not through the App Store — a gym, Amazon Prime, some news sites, anything you subscribed to on a website. To cancel these:

• Log in to the company's website → Account or Billing → Cancel.
• Check PayPal → Automatic payments, if you paid that way.
• Search your email for the signup confirmation — it usually links straight to "manage" or "cancel".

Will I lose access immediately?

No. Cancelling stops the next charge; you keep access until the end of the period you've already paid for. There's no penalty for cancelling early, so there's no reason to wait and risk forgetting.

How to get a refund from Apple

Charged for something you meant to cancel? Go to reportaproblem.apple.com, sign in, find the charge, and request a refund. Apple grants these case by case — being prompt and honest ("I forgot to cancel a trial") helps.

Stop it happening again

We get charged for unwanted subscriptions for one reason: we forget the renewal date. Keep a list of what you pay for and when it renews — or use an app that reminds you a few days before each one, so cancelling is always a decision you make on purpose, not a charge you discover later.