How to cancel a story app subscription

This is the page people arrive at angrily, so here is the short version first. There are two kinds of subscription in this field and they are cancelled in two different places. Everything else on this page is detail, exceptions and timing. We have not subscribed to anything, so nothing below is a walkthrough of a screen we have seen: it is what each service and each store publishes about its own process. For the surrounding mechanics, start at our guides index.

The one rule: leave by the door you came in

If you tapped a price inside an app on a phone, the payment was taken by Apple or Google, not by the service. The service genuinely cannot cancel it for you, which is why its support pages send you back to the store. Dreame's terms state it as a dependency: Subject to the policy of Apple Store and Google Play, the subscription can be canceled by you at any time before the end of the current billing period. Its record is one of only two in our research that go further and record that the cancellation does not happen in the app at all. Webnovel is the other.

If you paid on a website with a card, the service took the money and the service cancels it, usually through an account page.

Route one: bought in an app store

The services that document this route all describe the same shape, and several describe the store's own screens. Webnovel's terms say you may cancel at any time, the subscription expires at the end of the period, and the route runs through the Apple ID subscription settings on an iPhone or through Google Play on Android. The erotic-stories app's store text puts the Apple version generically: Subscriptions may be managed by the user and auto-renewal may be turned off by going to the user's Account Settings after purchase. Its terms add the responsibility clause you will see repeatedly: Users are responsible for canceling future renewals at the relevant App Store.

What the two stores say themselves

The services describe the store route in passing; the stores document it properly, and their wording is the one to follow. Apple's support page, "Cancel a subscription from Apple", gives four steps on an iPhone: In Settings, tap your name, then Tap Subscriptions, then the subscription itself, then Tap Cancel Subscription, scrolling down if the button is not in view. Where no Cancel button appears, or an expiry date is shown in red, Apple says the subscription is already cancelled. The page covers cancelling only: it does not describe viewing or changing a plan on an iPhone, it says nothing about when a cancellation of a paid subscription takes effect, and it leaves refunds to a separate page. Its one timing instruction is about trials, and it matches what the apps say: cancel at least 24 hours before the trial ends.

Google's page, "Cancel, pause, or change a subscription on Google Play", is shorter: open the subscriptions page in Google Play on the device, signed in to the account that holds the subscription, pick the subscription, tap Cancel subscription, and follow the steps on screen. Google adds the thing most people get wrong, that uninstalling the app does not cancel the subscription.

Two services name their own subscription inside the store. The GoodNovel listing tells you to choose GoodNovel Bundle to unsubscribe, and warns that otherwise this subscription will be automatically renewed. Roma: Romance Novels says you can manage or cancel your subscription at any time through your Apple ID account settings, and its listing does not describe the Android route. Satinaire, which only has an Android app, sends you to Google Play using the account that made the purchase, which matters if you have more than one.

Route two: bought on a website

Web subscriptions are cancelled by the service, and the published routes vary more than you would expect.

• An account page. DreamPress AI tells web users to Visit your account page on the website to manage or cancel your subscription. Sudowrite points at the account membership page or an email. Talefy's terms say to disable automatic renewal in your account. NovelCrafter uses a customer portal reached from inside the app, labelled Manage Subscription, or the account settings.
• A payment processor. Spicify's refund policy names all three of its doors at once: You may cancel your subscription at any time through your account settings, the Stripe customer portal or Apple subscriptions, depending on where you purchased. NovelAI's terms make the processor your responsibility: it is your responsibility to contact the agent to cancel your subscription either through directly contacting them or through our payment center.
• A membership platform. Erota sells paid membership through Patreon, and its FAQ is unusually direct about the limit of its own power: Only you can cancel your Patreon membership (we cannot).
• Support, by email. DreamGen's terms say you manage the subscription via the account management page or by contacting us at its support address. Everand allows cancellation through account settings on the site or in the app, by email, or through its support website.
• A named button. Kindle+ is the clearest of the lot: manage the subscription, then select the cancel option, which Amazon says you can do any time with no commitments.

Only four records in our research describe cancelling from inside the app itself as the real route: Pirr, which publishes In the app: Profile → Settings → Manage Subscription, DreamPress AI for its iOS subscribers, Everand, and NovelCrafter through its in-app portal. Everywhere else, the app is the wrong place to look.

The nineteen published routes

These are every service in our research that puts its cancellation route in writing, with the route in its own terms. Nothing is listed here that we could not read on a published page. The remaining 59 records say nothing about it, and the full price-and-billing table for every service is on the pricing pillar instead.

Service	Where you paid	The route it publishes
Dreame	App Store or Google Play	Apple ID subscription settings, or the Google Play subscriptions page
Webnovel	App Store or Google Play	Apple ID subscription settings on an iPhone, Google Play on Android
GoodNovel	App Store	Apple ID subscription settings, choosing the GoodNovel Bundle item
Erotic Stories - Erotica	App Store	Account Settings at the App Store; the terms make renewals your responsibility
Roma: Romance Novels	App Store	Apple ID account settings; no Android route is described
Satinaire	Google Play	Google Play, using the account that made the purchase
Wattpad	App Store or Google Play	The store the subscription was bought in, any time
Spicify	Web or App Store	Account settings, the Stripe customer portal, or Apple subscriptions
Pirr	In the app	Profile, then Settings, then Manage Subscription
DreamPress AI	Web or App Store	The web account page, or the subscription settings in the iOS app
AI Dungeon	Web	Profile picture, then Settings, then Membership, per its help page
DreamGen	Web	The account management page, or an email to its support address
NovelCrafter	Web	The customer portal reached from inside the app, or account settings
Sudowrite	Web	The account membership page, or by email
NovelAI	Payment processor	The processor directly, or its own payment centre
Erota	Patreon	On Patreon, which only you can do
Everand	Web or app	Account settings after signing in, by email, or through its support site
Kindle+	Amazon account	Manage the subscription, then the cancel option
Talefy	Account	Switch off automatic renewal in the account

Deleting the account is not cancelling

Satinaire's help page states the trap outright: Deleting your Satinaire account does not cancel your subscription. The logic is the same wherever a store took the payment. The store holds the subscription, the store does not know or care that you deleted a profile, and the charges continue. Uninstalling the app has exactly the same non-effect. Cancel first, confirm the cancellation, then delete whatever you want to delete.

What happens after you cancel

Google states the principle for anything bought on Android: you still be able to use your subscription for the time you've already paid, and its own example is a year bought on 1 January and cancelled on 1 July, where access runs to 31 December and no charge follows the next January. Apple's cancellation page does not say. In almost every published policy, access runs to the end of the period you have already paid for. Everand's subscriber agreement says cancellation takes effect immediately while access continues until the paid-up period ends. NovelCrafter's terms say the same. Amazon says a Kindle+ subscription will remain active until your next billing date. DreamPress AI says cancelling stops future billing and access continues to the end of the paid period.

One exception is worth memorising if you use an AI story service. NovelAI's documentation says tier privileges will remain in place until your paid subscription period has ended, but its currency does not: subscription Anlas are reset to zero when the subscription ends, including when it is cancelled early. Spend the balance before you cancel, not after.

Refunds: what the terms actually say

Twenty-one records publish a refund rule, and most of them are a flat no. Crave's terms say No refunds are offered for any products or services offered via the App, GoodNovel's that All fees are in U.S. dollars and are non-refundable, and Spicify's refund policy that All payments are final and Refunds are not available, each with an exception for mandatory consumer law. Wattpad does not refund the gap between cancelling and the end of the period.

Google says only that In some instances, you may be eligible for a refund, pointing to a page of its own, and that an unused prepaid plan can be refunded on request. Where a store took the money, the store owns the refund. The erotic-stories terms spell it out: For in-app purchases made through the App Store, we do not have the right to issue any refunds. The only way to receive a refund for such purchases is to contact Apple. AI Dungeon says the same about Apple payments and offers a discretionary review for anyone who kept a subscription without using it.

A few services do publish a window. DreamPress AI, a UK company citing the Consumer Contract Regulations, allows a refund within 14 days if none of the credits have been used. NovelCrafter directs refund requests within 14 days to its payment provider and handles later ones directly. Erota prorates, explaining that a refund after 20 days of a 30-day membership returns a third. StoryLoom's pricing page offers refunds on unused spools within 5 days. Dreame asks you to report a charge made in error within 30 days. Sudowrite is the only contradiction we found: its terms say it does not refund fees on cancellation, while its documentation promises a refund in the first week. Both are published and we have not reconciled them.

Before you start a trial

1. Write down the exact date the trial ends and set a reminder for the day before it.
2. Establish where you bought it. That decides where you cancel, and it is much easier to check on day one than on day seven.
3. Check whether the service publishes a cancellation route at all. Fifty-nine of our 78 records do not.
4. Read the refund line before paying, not after. Most of them say no.
5. Spend or ignore any credits the trial grants. Wattpad's policy says trial coins expire when the trial does.
6. Cancel at least 24 hours before the renewal date, because several services require exactly that.
7. Keep the confirmation. If the charge reappears, that email is the only evidence you will have.

What is not published

Nineteen of 78 services publish a cancellation route in the pages we read. That leaves 59 that do not, and for those the honest answer is that the store's own subscription settings are the place to start if you paid in an app, and the service's support address if you paid on a website. We have not installed anything to find out more, and we would rather say that than invent a menu path. If you want the cost side of the same decision, our guide to credits and coins and the per-service cost pages cover what you are actually paying for, and subscriptions against credit systems covers which model suits which reader.