How to Cancel an App Subscription on iPhone

A charge for an app you stopped using turned up on the statement again. The usual assumption is that deleting the app ended the billing, or that the cancellation lives somewhere inside the app. Subscriptions bought through the App Store are managed in one list in Settings, and that list is the only place a cancellation counts.

Open your subscriptions

Go to Settings, tap your name at the top, then tap Subscriptions. Active subscriptions appear first with their renewal dates, and expired ones are listed below. Everything Apple bills you for on a recurring basis is here.

Cancel the one you want to end

Tap the subscription, then tap Cancel Subscription and confirm. If the button says Cancel Free Trial, the same confirmation applies. The subscription moves to the expired list with an end date, and access continues until the end of the period you already paid for, so there is no reason to wait until the last day.

Check what Apple actually bills you for

If a charge does not match anything in the list, open Settings, your name, Media & Purchases, View Account, then Purchase History. That shows every App Store, iTunes, and in-app charge with a date and amount, which identifies the app behind an unfamiliar line on a card statement.

Cancel elsewhere if the app is not listed

Plenty of apps bill through their own website or through Google rather than Apple, and those never appear in Subscriptions. Sign in on the company's website and cancel from the account or billing page there, or in the Google Play subscriptions list if the original sign-up happened on an Android device.

Deleting the app cancels nothing. Removing it from the home screen stops nothing at the billing end, and the charge continues until the subscription itself is canceled. Cancel first, delete after.

Free trials need a day of margin. Renewal charges are prepared up to 24 hours before a trial ends, so cancel at least a full day early to avoid being billed for the first paid period.