How to cancel Substack
EasyAbout 3 minutesChecked against published steps 2 September 2026
Opens Substack's own cancellation page. You will need to be signed in to your Substack account.
How are you billed?
Substack can be cancelled direct and Apple — and the steps are completely different. Check the last charge on your statement if you are not sure.
Cancelling Substack directly
About 3 minutes · Easy
Open Settings
Find the publication under Subscriptions
Select Manage, then Cancel subscription
- Notice period
- None — cancelling takes effect straight away.
- How you will know it worked
- Confirmation email.
- What happens after you cancel
- You keep the paid benefits until the end of the period you have paid for, and then become a free subscriber to the same publication rather than being removed from it — free posts keep arriving, and what stops is the paid-only posts and the comments on them. Nothing further is charged. Refunds are tight and partly out of Substack's hands: a request inside 7 days of the payment is refunded, unless a subscriber perk has been claimed or the writer has marked the subscription non-refundable. After 7 days it is the writer's decision, not Substack's. If you subscribed through the Substack iOS app, Apple took the payment and only Apple can stop it.
- How we checked
- Checked against Substack's published instructions on 2 September 2026.Nobody has walked this flow, so treat the steps as their account of it rather than ours.
Cancelling Substack through Apple
About 3 minutes · Easy
Open Settings on your iPhone or iPad, then tap your name
On the web, go to apps.apple.com/account/subscriptions
Tap Subscriptions
Select the subscription, then Cancel Subscription
- Notice period
- At least 1 day before your renewal date. Apple requires cancellation at least 24 hours before the renewal date.
- How you will know it worked
- Confirmation email.
- What happens after you cancel
- You keep access until the end of the period you have already paid for — Apple does not refund the unused part, and cancelling early does not end it sooner. The subscription disappears from your Apple subscriptions list on that date. Two things this does not do: it does not close your account with the service, so anything stored there stays where it is, and it does not get you a refund. Refunds for Apple-billed subscriptions are asked for at reportaproblem.apple.com, not from the merchant, who genuinely cannot issue one.
- How we checked
- Checked against Substack's published instructions on 1 September 2026.Nobody has walked this flow, so treat the steps as their account of it rather than ours.
What else are you paying for?
Find possible recurring subscriptions in your bank statement. Cancel OS reads a statement export you give it and flags the charges that look recurring, for you to confirm.