How to Easily Cancel Patreon Memberships: Step-by-Step

Have you ever supported your favorite creator on Patreon, only to later realize the monthly charges have piled up on subscriptions you no longer use or want? Or perhaps you tried being a creator yourself but are ready to take a break from making content. Either way, you may be wondering: how do I actually go about canceling my Patreon membership or subscription?

The answer is thankfully straightforward, though the exact steps depend on whether you are canceling as a subscriber or creator. By following this in-depth guide, you’ll learn:

• What happens when you cancel Patreon
• How to cancel desktop and mobile memberships
• Turning off auto-renewal for payments
• Pausing a creator account
• What to expect for billing and account access after canceling
• Mistakes to avoid when canceling
• And more!

Let’s get started.

What Happens When You Cancel a Patreon Membership or Subscription

Before diving into the how-to details, it helps to know what generally happens when you cancel your Patreon membership:

• You won’t receive a refund for any current or previous subscription period after canceling. However, you’ll still have access to any content you already paid for until the end of the billing cycle.
• Pending or upcoming automatic billing dates on your account won’t be halted by canceling. You’ll need to visit your billing history page first to view any outstanding balances owed before canceling.
• Those on monthly memberships will immediately lose access to their creator’s patron-only feed and content once canceling is effective at month’s end. However, annual members keep access until term completion.
• You can always easily rejoin a creator’s Patreon later even after canceling a membership. Your account remains intact.

Now let’s get into the step-by-step instructions for how to cancel your Patreon membership or subscription.

Step-by-Step Instructions to Cancel Patreon on Desktop

If you signed up for Patreon directly through the website (rather than mobile), then luckily canceling your membership works almost identically in reverse:

1. Open up the Patreon website and log into your Patreon account.
2. Locate your profile icon in the top right of your screen, hover over this, and click ‘Manage memberships’.
3. This will bring you to a full page list of all your ‘Active memberships’ aka creators you currently subscribe to as a patron.
4. Identify the creator membership you wish to cancel, and click the ‘edit’ button within that box.
5. Once inside the payment and benefits details page for that membership, scroll down and click the ‘Edit or Cancel Membership’ button directly under the main Update button.
6. A small confirmation box will pop up. Click ‘Cancel your membership’ and then confirm cancelling by clicking the red ‘Cancel your membership’ box on the next screen.
7. You may optionally fill out a cancellation feedback survey if one appears. After, the page will reload as if you are a brand new visitor to the creator’s page. This confirms canceling was successful.
8. To cancel multiple creator subscriptions, repeat steps 4-7.

And that’s it! Cancelling your patron pledges seamlessly on desktop step-by-step without the hassle of contacting support.

Do keep in mind that you will still see a list of the creator’s content that you have paid access to already as an existing patron before hitting ‘cancel’. So you can determine if waiting until month’s end is worth it to you for archival or completion sake.

How to Cancel Your Patreon Membership or Subscription on Mobile

Don’t have easy desktop access but need to cancel your Patreon pledge from your iPhone or Android device? The mobile app makes it simple too with just a few taps:

On iOS:

1. Open the Patreon app and ensure you’re logged into the account holding the membership.
2. Tap your profile icon at the bottom of the app screen to open the slide-out account menu.
3. Choose ‘My memberships’ which lists creators you currently pledge to support.
4. Identify the membership you wish to cancel and tap the ‘…’ icon to access membership options.
5. Choose ‘Edit Pledge’ from the next menu.
6. Scroll down until you see and can tap the ‘Edit or Cancel Payment’ button.
7. On the next screen choose the red ‘Cancel your Payment’ button and confirm cancellation on the popup.

You will immediately see that membership disappear from your ongoing Active list once canceled on mobile. Rinse and repeat to remove other unwanted pledges.

On Android:

1. Similarly, ensure you first log into your Patreon account within the Android app.
2. Tap the account profile icon from the bottom toolbar and select ‘My memberships’.
3. To access cancellation actions for a pledge, tap the pencil icon located right beside the relevant membership listing you wish to cancel.
4. Choose ‘Edit or Cancel Payment’ on the next page.
5. Finally, select ‘Cancel your Payment’ in red text and confirm your choice.

Now that you know how to take back control of payments from creators you no longer wish to fund, what about managing things on the flip side if you have your own creator page within Patreon?

Pausing or Unlaunching Your Creator Page if You’re Also a Patreon Creator

If you feel it’s time to take a break from creating patron-funded content for a while, Patreon does allow you to temporarily pause your creator page access without deleting your account entirely.

Here is what the platform recommends doing in preparation before unlaunching:

• Give advanced notice to existing subscribers you’re stepping back for a while
• Download a CSV export of your historical creator payout data
• Pay any outstanding balances you might have on invoices or pledged payments from patrons

Once those bases are covered, you can then:

1. Go to your Creator Page Settings
2. Scroll to the very bottom ‘Danger Zone’ section of the page
3. Click the ‘Unlaunch your creator page‘ button
4. Read disclaimer details and check the box to confirm
5. Select Unlaunch Page button to remove public access

Note this keeps your account active behind the scenes so you retain the ability to relaunch creator-related tools at any point. But pledges, secure posts, your merch shop, etc will cease working until you officially republish your page publicly at a future date after a break.

What to Do if You Have an Upcoming or Pending Billing Date on Patreon?

Before hastily canceling your account in frustration, it’s highly recommended you first check if Patreon is due to process any outstanding pending balance owed on memberships tied to your account either as a patron or creator.

This is important because canceling will not halt pending automatic billing dates or outstanding invoices already in their system. So you could still see charges hit your bank account even after disabling access to certain content or perks by closing your account.

To view the full billing details:

1. Visit your Patreon billing history page while logged into your account
2. Locate the ‘Pending’ tab to see upcoming billing dates, amounts owed, installments, etc.
3. Scan the ‘Past payments’ tab for older billing activity as well.

This way you can determine if settling up any unpaid balances makes sense before canceling memberships tied to your account payment credentials. Depending on circumstances, it may also be worth trying to contact the creators directly about pardon for pending or the option to pay separately.

Also be wary of any special limited-time promotions your memberships might currently be under when cancelling. As those often revert to standard pricing eventually, meaning higher charges could hit your specified payment method later down the road if not fully cancelled beyond promotional periods as well.

Will I Still Have Access to Content if I Cancel Patreon?

A common concern when canceling a creator pledge subscription on Patreon is whether or not you’ll still have access to any content already paid for during previous membership cycles.

The short answer is yes, cancelling your creator pledge or subscription won’t suddenly revoke access to content you’ve already rightfully paid for as an existing patron up until that point.

However, there is some nuance depending on creators’ individual billing structures:

For those patrons charged upfront per creation (this includes creators using Patreon’s oldest legacy billing system):

• You would already have lifetime access to anything ever funded per posted creation
• So canceling won’t impact ability to continue engaging older content

Whereas for creator pages using Patreon’s monthly billing systems:

• You only retain access until that already-paid current cycle ends (often the end of calendar month)
• On the 1st of the next month post-cancellation you then lose access to their patron-exclusive feed and content benefits
• This applies to both monthly and annual membership subscriptions

So in summary – enjoy anything you’ve already paid for until your final paid period closes, but last month’s content goes away once the next payment cycle would normally renew. Plan accordingly if you’re halfway through a creator’s content but wish to cancel before finishing it out.

How Do Free Trials and Promotions Work When Canceling Patreon?

As referenced briefly already, since Patreon creators can run special pricing promotions or limited-time free trials for new members, properly managing expectations around these before canceling is critical too.

Namely whether opting into intro deals or Patreon’s built-in free trial onboarding tools means:

1. You agreed to continuing normal rate charges once the short-term period concludes
2. And also possibly consented to automatic account holding renewal at month’s end if you don’t cancel in time

So before rage quitting a membership, triple check details like:

• Did you sign-up under a special discounted promotional price? Is that expiring?
• Does the creator have any custom “scholarship” tiers or special pricing exceptions on your plan?
• Expect to lose this special treatment and revert to higher standard rates if canceling before properly transitioning tiers

Likewise free trials – ensure you fully cancel before the automatic renewal period kicks in when the complimentary timeframe is over. Unless of course you do actually want to convert to being a normal paid patron.

Reviewing the original confirmation emails from creators upon joining can provide clarity around any of these bespoke pricing considerations before cancellation steps.

Can I Rejoin a Creator’s Patreon Membership After Cancelling?

Fortunately if you cancel your pledge or subscription and later have regrets, it is indeed possible to resume supporting a beloved Patreon creator again in future.

When you cancel a membership, your account itself remains fully intact. This means your payment credentials also stick around for easy reactivation, along with things like:

• Notification settings
• Bookmarks history
• Any private unread direct messages with creators
• Comment engagement and likes

So don’t fret about losing this history, preferences, or creator relationship building progress even after canceling payments for a while. Your internal Patreon identity continues living on in their background systems.

To resume support in future after a cancellation, when signed into your known account, you can simply browse to the creator’s public Patreon page and re-subscribe once again as normal like any repeat customer.

You may be asked to confirm payment details again upon re-pledging after gaps longer than 1 year. But typically everything picks up fast right where you left off!

Note creators with limited membership slots may temporarily block you from instantly rejoining a previously held higher tier after canceling until open vacancies return on their end. But messaging them should be able to resolve holding your place if capped.

What Will Show Up on My Bank Statement for Patreon Charges?

As a final consideration when managing your Patreon memberships, it’s worthwhile knowing how exactly charges and descriptions from “PATREON” may discreetly appear in your bank or credit card statements after joining, so you recognize account activity properly after canceling.

Since Patreon processes globally, localized institutions handle payments differently per region regulations. But some common pending or previous billing descriptions you may continue spotting after cancellation are:

• PATREON*CREATOR-NAME
• PATREON*PLEDGE
• PATREON MEMBERSHIP
• VISIT PATREON.COM/INFO

Or abbreviated regional versions like:

• PATREON MEMBR LONDON GBR
• PATREON ABONNEMENTS PARIS FRA

You also may see PayPal as the processor if you paid memberships by linking accounts. Or random digits like 402-935-7733 used as reference codes.

Mistakes to Avoid When Canceling Your Patreon Subscription

While canceling a Patreon membership or creator subscription is fairly straightforward as covered, there are still a few common mistakes any user should avoid when going to cancel:

Attempting cancellation without logging in first – Some try to remove payments as a guest from the external homepage. But you must log into your existing registered account properly to manage and edit memberships or account settings accurately tied to your credentials.

Forgetting to cancel recurring billing dates – As referenced for pending balances above also, merely closing your account alone doesn’t always halt charges owed from already occurring in their billing systems first. So cancelling should actually be a separate careful step done beforehand with payment details known.

Canceling accidentally as the wrong account type – Creators who are also patrons of fellow creators in the community need to be very careful when canceling subscriptions that they do so under their member profile, rather than mistakenly their creator account which manages earnings. Toggling the profile switcher photos is key.

And last but not least…not downloading data before deleting – If fully deleting your Patreon account later down the road, be sure to first export any membership history or transactions analytics from their tools you may want saved beyond permanent scrapping.

Key Takeaways and Next Steps After Cancelling Patreon Membership

Phew, that was certainly a lot of detailed ground to cover when it comes to properly managing and eventually cancelling account memberships related to Patreon!

Let’s recap key tips to remember:

• You must cancel any outstanding billing dates or invoices prior to account closure
• Canceling renews immediately on desktop web, but removes mobile access until month’s end
• Be mindful of promotional pricing or scholarships expiring after cancellation
• Expect to lose access to patron-only content feeds starting the following calendar month
• Rejoining creator pledges in future remains simple if you change your mind

And when it comes to what’s next – be sure to monitor bank statements closing out any lingering subscription charges coming through still. Consider managing all your monthly memberships under one dashboard with services like ScribeUp to better track recurring finances too.

That concludes everything you need to be aware of when it comes to properly understanding how to cancel your Patreon memberships or creator subscription! Let us know in the comments if you have any other questions.