How to Cancel Your Substack Subscription: Step-by-Step Guide

Canceling a Substack subscription is straightforward, but the exact process depends on how you're paying and what type of subscription you have. Whether you've decided a newsletter no longer fits your reading habits or you're trimming your subscription expenses, here's what you need to know.

Understanding Substack Subscriptions

Before you cancel, it helps to understand what you're actually subscribed to. Substack subscriptions are paid memberships to individual newsletters, not to Substack as a platform. This means you're not canceling Substack itself—you're canceling your paid membership to one or more specific writers' newsletters.

You can follow newsletters for free on Substack without paying anything. If you've upgraded to a paid tier for a particular writer, that's what creates a subscription you may want to cancel.

How to Cancel Through Your Substack Account

The primary way to cancel a Substack subscription is directly through your account settings.

Here's the general process:

  1. Log into your Substack account at substack.com using your email and password.
  2. Navigate to your account menu, typically found in the upper right corner.
  3. Look for "Manage Subscriptions," "Payments," or "Account Settings" (exact naming varies).
  4. Find the newsletter you want to unsubscribe from in your subscriptions list.
  5. Select the option to cancel, unsubscribe, or remove (phrasing differs by interface update).
  6. Confirm the cancellation when prompted.

The process should take less than a minute. Once confirmed, you'll typically lose access to paid content from that newsletter, though free posts remain readable.

Canceling Subscriptions You Paid With Credit Card

If you subscribed using a credit or debit card directly through Substack, the cancellation happens in your account settings. Your card won't be charged again once the cancellation is confirmed.

Be aware that if you cancel mid-billing cycle, you won't receive a refund for the unused portion of your current billing period. Substack's refund policies vary by writer, so if you believe you have a case for a refund, you may want to contact the newsletter writer directly to ask.

Canceling Apple App Store or Google Play Subscriptions

If you subscribed through the Apple App Store (on iPhone or iPad) or the Google Play Store (on Android), the cancellation process happens outside of Substack itself.

For Apple App Store:

  1. Open the Settings app on your Apple device.
  2. Tap your Apple ID at the top.
  3. Select Subscriptions.
  4. Find your Substack newsletter subscription.
  5. Tap Cancel Subscription and confirm.

For Google Play Store:

  1. Open the Google Play Store app.
  2. Tap your profile icon in the upper right.
  3. Select Payments and Subscriptions, then Subscriptions.
  4. Find your Substack newsletter.
  5. Tap Cancel Subscription and follow the prompts.

When you cancel through these payment platforms, you're stopping the recurring charge on your device's payment method. Access to paid newsletter content will end, typically at the end of your current billing period.

What Happens After You Cancel ⏱️

Immediate changes:

  • You lose access to paid (subscriber-only) posts from that newsletter going forward
  • You remain on the free subscriber list and will continue receiving free posts
  • Your cancellation is usually effective immediately, though some payments systems process it at the end of the current billing cycle

What doesn't happen:

  • Your Substack account doesn't close (you can resubscribe to the same or other newsletters anytime)
  • You won't be unsubscribed from the newsletter's free posts unless you actively unfollow it
  • Past posts you paid to access may remain in your archive, depending on the writer's settings

Canceling Multiple Subscriptions

If you subscribe to several Substack newsletters and want to cancel multiple subscriptions at once, you'll need to go through the process for each one individually. There's no bulk-cancel feature. However, if you're looking to reduce subscription expenses broadly, you might consider:

  • Auditing your reading habits: Which newsletters do you actually open and read?
  • Checking unread counts: Substack typically shows how many unread posts you have per subscription.
  • Prioritizing by value: If budget is tight, which paid newsletters give you the most value relative to cost?

If You Can't Find Your Subscription

Sometimes subscriptions are easy to lose track of. If you're having trouble locating a subscription you know you have:

  • Check your email provider's search for recent invoices or charge notifications from Substack.
  • Review your credit card or bank statement to confirm what's being charged and when.
  • Log into your Substack account and look carefully through your subscriptions list—they may be grouped by writer name rather than publication name.
  • Contact the newsletter writer directly if you're charged but can't find the subscription in your account; they may be able to help troubleshoot.

Refunds and Billing Questions

Substack itself doesn't have a standardized refund policy—individual writers set their own policies. If you're seeking a refund:

  • Check the writer's FAQ or refund policy if one is published.
  • Reach out to the writer directly to ask about refund eligibility (this is more likely if you canceled within a very short window after subscribing).
  • If you paid through Apple or Google, you may be able to request a refund through your device's payment system within a certain window (typically 14–15 days), depending on their policies.

Unsubscribing vs. Canceling Your Subscription

It's worth knowing the difference between these two actions:

  • Canceling a paid subscription stops recurring charges and removes your access to paid posts.
  • Unfollowing or unsubscribing from a newsletter entirely removes it from your reading list. You won't receive emails for new posts, and you won't see it listed under your subscriptions.

You can cancel a paid subscription and still follow the newsletter for free posts, or you can unfollow entirely. It depends on whether you want to stay informed about free content from that writer.

Why Might You Cancel?

Your reasons for canceling don't affect the process, but they might affect what you do next. Common reasons people cancel Substack subscriptions include:

  • Changing reading priorities as interests shift
  • Reducing overall subscription expenses during budget reviews
  • Finding the content no longer matches what you're looking for
  • Outgrowing a particular newsletter as your needs evolve
  • Testing whether a paid newsletter is worth the cost (and deciding it isn't)

Understanding why you're canceling can help you decide whether you want to unfollow entirely or remain a free subscriber.

The cancellation process itself is quick, but taking time to review what you're actually reading and getting value from is a worthwhile step. Your subscription landscape should reflect what you actually need, not outdated spending habits.