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Free Trials Aren't Free if You Forget to Cancel. Here’s How to Avoid Paying
Free trials are an excellent way to test out products and services before shelling out your hard-earned money. After all, who can resist testing a new streaming service, such as Paramount+ or YouTube TV? But you may not want to pay for a subscription, so you’ll need to cancel the free trial.
Trials last for a limited period before you need to decide whether to commit or cancel them. If you’ve finished testing a service and don’t wish to continue, here’s how to cancel your subscription so you can avoid being charged.
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Signing up for a free trial is a great way to test out a product or service without spending any money. But they can end up costing you if you’re not careful.
Even if you think you’ll cancel the service before your free trial ends, be cautious about signing up for something that doesn’t fit into your budget. You don’t want to fall in love with a service only to have no choice but to cancel it because you can’t afford it. And you don’t want to overdraft your account if you don’t cancel in time.
In addition to hoping you don’t cancel, companies want to make sure they get paid. Though a free trial shouldn’t cost you anything, you may see a pending charge or pre-authorization on your account, which is basically the company’s way of verifying your account is legit.
One way to avoid going past a subscription’s free trial period is to cancel right after signing up. You won’t have to worry about remembering to do it whenever the trial ends.
However, it’s important to note: Do this only if the company will continue providing the service through the end of the trial period. Some don’t and will cut you off as soon as you submit your cancellation. Then you’ve wasted the opportunity to test out the service.
Using a virtual credit card is another tactic to avoid paying for subscriptions past the trial period. Virtual credit cards are credit card numbers issued by some banks, credit card companies and independent financial companies. (You don’t actually get a physical card.) These virtual cards often are restricted to a one-time use or have a short expiration period, which makes them favorable to people signing up for free trials.
Then there’s the strategy of simply canceling your free trial right before it ends. Set a reminder (or two) to cut your ties with the service before payment is due.
Most companies aren’t going to send you a reminder that your free period is about to be over. Mark your calendar, set an alert on your phone or do whatever you need to remember to cancel.
Make sure you read over the cancellation policy when you sign up for a free trial. Some companies require you to submit cancellation requests a day or two before the start of the first billing period. Generally, when you log into your account, there’s an option to cancel under the section for billing or subscription management. There will probably be multiple prompts to convince you not to cancel, but don’t let them sway you.
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We browsed the cancellation policies of several popular services to get instructions on how to cancel their free trials. In every case, make sure you complete all the steps to confirm your cancellation. Lots of companies send email confirmations.
These guidelines are based on canceling directly through each service. Canceling a trial you acquired through a third party — for example, a free HBO trial you signed up for through your cable provider — may require different steps.
Here are the steps to cancel a free trial of Adobe.
According to the terms and conditions for Amazon Prime, you have three business days from when your free trial converts to a paid membership to get a full refund, provided you haven’t used any of the Prime benefits during that three-day period.
However, to cancel your trial before it switches to the paid version, visit this page and click the “Cancel Your Prime Membership” button.
According to Ancestry Support, your free trial ends automatically once you cancel it, even if additional days were remaining in the trial period. Cancel Ancestry’s free trial by following these steps.
Cancel your Apple Music free trial by following the steps below.
Cancel your Apple TV+ free trial by following the steps below.
Here’s how to cancel your free trial of Audible.
See the steps below to cancel your free Avast trial before you get charged.
See here for additional instructions on how to cancel if you signed up using a different order distributor.
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Cancel your FuboTV free trial by following the steps below.
According to Hulu’s terms and conditions, your service may end immediately upon cancellation. Follow these steps to cancel.
Cancel your Paramount+ free trial by following the steps below.
See here for information about how to cancel your Showtime subscription through third parties.
Cancel your YouTube TV free trial by following the steps below.
Check out Google’s support page for additional information about canceling on an Android or Apple mobile device.
Nicole Dow is a former senior writer at The Penny Hoarder. Senior managing editor Tiffany Wendeln Connors updated this story for 2026.
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