How to Cancel a Shopify Subscription (Store Plan, App Charges, and Customer Subscriptions)

First, which Shopify subscription do you want to cancel?

Shopify bills merchants for two things (the store plan and paid apps), and stores bill their own customers for product subscriptions. Pick your case:

• Your Shopify store plan (Basic, Grow, Advanced, Plus or a trial) — you want to stop paying Shopify for the store. Covered first below.
• A paid app’s subscription — an app you installed is billing you every 30 days on your Shopify invoice. Covered in the second section.
• A customer’s product subscription — a subscribe-and-save or membership order that renews automatically. Covered in the third section — and if you are the shopper, in the fourth.

How to cancel your Shopify store plan (deactivate the store)

Cancelling a Shopify plan is called deactivating your store. Only the store owner can do it, and Shopify walks you through a short checklist first. From a desktop browser:

1. In your Shopify admin go to Settings → Plan.
2. Click Cancel plan (or Cancel trial if you are still on a free trial).
3. Shopify offers a downgrade or the Pause and build plan as alternatives; skip them if you want to close fully.
4. Review any Shopify-managed domains (transfer them or they will renew) and any pending charges, which will still be billed.
5. Select Cancel my plan and uninstall all apps and click Continue.
6. Choose a reason for leaving, add optional comments, and click Continue.
7. Optionally tick Save payment details to reopen your store faster.
8. Enter your password and click Cancel plan (or Cancel trial).

On the phone: the same flow exists in the Shopify mobile app — tap the menu icon, then Settings → Plan, and follow the steps above with taps instead of clicks. There is no separate “cancel by phone call” route; Shopify handles plan cancellation inside the admin.

What happens next: all apps are uninstalled, outstanding orders, gift cards and chargebacks must be resolved before you close, and Shopify keeps your store information for two years so you can reactivate by logging in and choosing a plan. You can ask Shopify to delete customer data sooner. If you only need a break, Pause and build keeps the admin accessible at a reduced monthly fee with checkout switched off.

How to cancel a Shopify app subscription (stop app charges)

Paid apps are billed through Shopify as a recurring charge (for example “$49 every 30 days”) that appears on your Shopify bill. To cancel one, you uninstall the app:

1. Go to Settings → Apps and sales channels in your admin.
2. Click the ⋯ (menu) icon next to the app and select Uninstall.
3. Optionally pick a reason, then click Uninstall to confirm.

Shopify Help is explicit on billing: uninstalling a paid app cancels future recurring charges, but you may still be billed for the current billing cycle. If you want a refund for unused time, contact the app developer before uninstalling; for apps made by Shopify, contact Shopify Support. Two cautions: some apps bill you outside Shopify (on their own website) and uninstalling does not cancel those external charges — cancel with the provider directly; and some apps store data you cannot recover after uninstalling, so export what you need first. To see what an app is charging you and when the cycle resets, open Settings → Apps and sales channels, click the app, and review its billing details and usage charges.

Uninstalling a subscription app is a special case: Shopify keeps the subscription contracts and payment methods, but the app’s other subscription data is deleted 48 hours after uninstall. Migrate to the new app first (see how to switch subscription apps), then uninstall.

How to cancel a customer’s subscription (merchant)

If a customer asks you to stop their recurring order, where you do it depends on the app that created the subscription contract.

Shopify Subscriptions (Shopify’s free app): from your admin go to Apps → Subscriptions, click Contracts, open the customer’s contract, and choose Cancel. You can also Pause (and later Resume) the contract, or skip a single upcoming order from the Next orders section by clicking Skip. Shopify notes that a cancelled contract cannot be undone — the customer would have to subscribe again from your storefront, which creates a new contract. If the customer only wants a different product, swap the item on the contract instead of cancelling.

A third-party app (RecurX, Recharge, Seal, Appstle, Loop, Bold, Skio): open the app from your admin, find the subscriber, and use its cancel or pause action. In RecurX this is Subscriptions → the subscriber → Cancel, with the option to pause or skip instead. The contract is updated in Shopify automatically.

How to cancel a subscription you bought from a Shopify store (shopper)

Shopify is the platform the store runs on — it does not bill you, and Shopify Support cannot cancel a product subscription for you. The store does, through its subscription app. The reliable route:

1. Open the subscription or order confirmation email from the store and look for a Manage subscription link — this is the fastest way in.
2. Or sign in to your account on the store’s website. If the store uses Shopify Subscriptions, your account has a subscriptions area where you can skip, pause/resume, or cancel, and update your payment method and shipping address. Third-party apps offer the same options in their customer portal.
3. Choose Cancel to stop future billing — or pause/skip if you only need a break.
4. If you cannot find a portal link, reply to an order email or use the store’s contact page and ask them to cancel, quoting your order number.
5. Check your next bank statement to confirm no further charges from that merchant appear.

Cancelling stops future charges; whether a payment that already went through is refunded is up to the store’s refund policy. Some stores set a minimum commitment on discounted plans and may block early cancellation or charge an early-cancellation fee — this must be disclosed before you subscribe.

For merchants: let customers cancel themselves (and keep more of them)

Shopify’s subscription requirements expect that subscribers can cancel without friction, and burying cancellation behind a support queue creates chargebacks and bad reviews. Counterintuitively, making cancellation easy protects revenue — because a good portal offers a pause or skip before a full cancel, and a retention offer at the moment of intent recovers a large share of would-be churn.

• Offer a self-service customer portal on your own domain where subscribers can pause, skip, swap, change frequency, or cancel without emailing you.
• Present alternatives to cancelling — pause for a cycle, skip the next order, or change frequency — before the final cancel button.
• Add a retention offer (a discount or a free gift) at the cancellation step, routed by the reason the customer gives.
• Protect discounted plans fairly with a disclosed minimum commitment rather than hidden obstacles.
• Separate voluntary from involuntary cancellation — many “cancellations” are actually failed payments. Automated dunning recovers those without the customer ever intending to leave.

For the full retention playbook, see how to reduce churn and the cancellation-flow guide.

How cancellation works in RecurX