To cancel your Spotify subscription, first check who bills you. If Spotify charges your card directly, go to spotify.com/account, open Manage your plan, and select Cancel subscription. If Apple, Google Play, or a mobile carrier handles your billing, you have to cancel through that platform instead. Hitting cancel in the wrong place does nothing, which is why so many people keep getting charged after they thought they ended their Premium.
Check Who Bills You
Log in at spotify.com/account in a browser and look under Your plan. The payment section tells you whether Spotify handles billing directly or a third party processes the charge. While you’re there, note your next billing date. That date is both your deadline to cancel before the next charge and the day your Premium access ends after you cancel.
You can also find the billing date in the mobile app under Settings and privacy → Account → Billing.
Cancel Directly on Spotify
If Spotify bills you, the process is two clicks:
- Go to Manage your plan at spotify.com/account/subscription/manage
- Select Cancel subscription
Premium stays active until your next billing date, then your account switches to the free, ad-supported tier. Playlists and saved music stay put.
Free trials work differently. Canceling a trial switches you to the free plan right away rather than at the end of the trial window. If you want every day of the trial, wait until closer to the end before canceling, but leave enough margin not to forget.
Cancel Through Apple
If Apple appears as your payment method, Spotify can’t cancel the subscription for you. Do it from your iPhone or iPad:
- Open Settings and tap your name at the top
- Tap Subscriptions
- Find Spotify and tap it
- Tap Cancel Subscription
For trials billed through Apple, cancel at least 24 hours before the trial ends to avoid being charged for the next period. Apple is strict about that cutoff. If you miss it, you can request a refund at reportaproblem.apple.com, though approval isn’t guaranteed. An initial response usually takes 24 to 48 hours.
Cancel Through Google Play
Open the Play Store app, tap your profile icon, then go to Payments and subscriptions → Subscriptions. Find Spotify, tap it, and cancel.
Google Play also offers a pause option that Spotify’s own site doesn’t. Pausing freezes your billing for up to three months without fully canceling. You lose Premium access during the pause and aren’t charged, and the subscription resumes automatically when the pause period ends. Useful if you’re undecided.
Cancel a Carrier or Bundle Subscription
Some mobile carriers and internet providers include Spotify Premium in a service bundle. If your Spotify account page shows a partner company handling billing, cancel through that partner’s website, app, or support line. Look for an add-ons or subscriptions section in your account dashboard.
Spotify itself does not charge a cancellation fee. Your carrier may have its own policies about removing bundled services mid-cycle, so ask before assuming you’ll be charged extra.
What You Keep and What You Lose
Canceling Premium doesn’t delete your account. It drops to the free tier at the end of your current billing period.
- Playlists, saved music, and listening history stay. They’re tied to your account, not your subscription level.
- Offline downloads become inaccessible once Premium ends.
- The free tier plays ads between songs.
- Streaming quality on the free tier is capped below Premium.
- Audiobooks you purchased separately remain on your account. You only lose them if you close the account entirely.
What Happens to Family and Duo Plans
If you manage a Family or Duo plan and cancel it, every member loses Premium access at the next billing date and reverts to the free tier. Managed accounts on a Family plan drop to free as well.
If you’re a secondary member on someone else’s plan and want your own subscription, you don’t have to wait for the plan manager. Leave the shared plan and start your own Premium Individual subscription. Your playlists and history carry over because they belong to your account, not the plan.
Can You Get a Refund?
Spotify does not prorate refunds for partial billing periods. Cancel on day five of a 30-day cycle and you keep access for the remaining 25 days, but you don’t get money back for unused time.
Full refunds are limited to narrow windows: if you haven’t used the service within 14 days of your first purchase, or within 7 days of a later monthly payment. Outside those windows, you’re paying for the full month regardless of when you cancel.
If Apple or Google Play billed you, refund requests go through those platforms, not Spotify. Apple handles them at reportaproblem.apple.com, with an initial response typically within 24 to 48 hours and extra time for funds to post if approved.
Canceling vs. Closing the Account
Canceling Premium just stops the paid plan. Closing the account is a separate, permanent action that deletes your data from Spotify’s apps and services, including any purchased audiobooks and live event tickets tied to the account.
After you close, Spotify sends a reactivation link that works for seven days. After that, deletion proceeds and can’t be reversed. For most people, canceling Premium and keeping the free account is the better move. It costs nothing, preserves your library, and lets you resubscribe later without rebuilding anything.