How To Cancel Patreon Membership or Pause A Creator Account to Save Money

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Patreon is one of the best business tools for content creators to offer a membership service to their subscribers. This membership platform offers regular monthly income to creators of all kinds while fostering a supportive community to help them scale.

Unfortunately, even though it is a great platform, there may be reasons why you choose to cancel your membership, or can no longer support a specific creator. If this is the case, you can follow these steps to cancel your Patreon Membership or Subscription.

Here’s how to cancel a Patreon Membership or Patreon Pledge

To cancel your Patreon Membership or Patreon Subscription on your desktop, use the following steps

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 
3. Select the ‘Manage memberships’ option
4. This will bring you to a list of the active subscriptions for the creators that you are supporting
5. Once you have identified the creator’s subscription service you wish to cancel, click the edit button within that creator’s box
6. Once inside your monthly payment option, you can adjust to ‘choose what you pay’, change the ‘payment method’, or ‘Edit or Cancel Membership’
7. Once clicking this, a box will appear. Choose ‘Cancel your membership’ and select the red cancel button that appears next
8. If you choose to, you may fill out the survey if one appears. 
9. After canceling your membership, you will see this creator page as if viewing it for the first time. You can also rejoin to access their content again if you’d like. 

*Note that you will see a list of the creator’s content that you have access to as a member, prior to selecting the cancel button. 

Related: 60 Ways to Save More Money in 2024

If you are still a bit stuck, you can also watch this great and simple tutorial video created by Dusty Porter.

To cancel your Patreon Membership or Patreon Subscription on mobile

1. Similar to the process for canceling on desktop, log into and open your Patreon app
2. Click on your profile icon at the bottom of the app
3. ​Select the ‘My memberships’ option, and locate the membership you wish to cancel
4. Click the pencil icon to edit the payment details
5. To cancel payment option, click ‘Edit or Cancel Membership’ and a pop-up window will appear
6. Either select a different tier or ‘cancel your membership’ to confirm option

Here is a YouTube tutorial for how to cancel on mobile. 👇

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How do I turn off auto-renewal for my Patreon membership?

If you were interested in the free trial offered by a Patreon creator, but decided that their content wasn’t for you, you can choose to cancel your membership tier. To learn more about Patreon’s free trial, you can read their support page here.

If you choose the annual membership option, there is a way to cancel the auto-renewal. Unfortunately, in most cases, they will not give you a refund for the remaining months if you cancel earlier in the year, but after canceling you will have no more future payments unless you have any other pending bills. 

However, with most platforms, the Patreon billing method for the annual membership requires upfront one-time payments. So when you turn off auto-renewal, you do not get a refund. In some cases though, creators may offer you a prorated refund, at their discretion. 

Because the monthly paid subscription is a bit different than the annual membership, you will still have access to the content for the year that you have paid for. For more details on the annual membership, you can read more on their support page here. 

To turn off auto-renewal, navigate back to the ‘Manage Memberships’. Locate the membership you wish to cancel, and then update the settings you wish to change or click ‘cancel your payment’.

How To Pause Your Patreon Account As A Content Creator

If you decide you want to take a step back from creating content, you can choose to pause your creator account without deleting your account.

To do this, open your creator account settings and scroll down to the ‘Unlaunch Creator Page’. A pop-up window will appear to confirm your decision. 

The Patreon team recommends that prior to unlaunching your creator page, that you inform your subscribers that you are removing your creator page. Additionally, they recommend you pay for any remaining balances and download a CSV of your payout history for your personal records. 

Click here to learn more about unpublishing your creator page.

If you have difficulties with this and require additional help, you can email Patreon support by submitting a request form here. It may take up to 1 week for the Patreon team to respond when there is high demand, so be aware of this if you start to experience any difficulties.

When you are ready to start creating content again, you will want to make sure that you are doing so legally. Before you decide to publish your creator page again, make sure you take a quick look at my review post of these amazing legal templates, to make sure that both you and your content is protected.

FAQ

Can I cancel my Patreon membership at any time?

Yes. But you will not receive a refund for the time that you have already selected if you have a monthly subscription.

Will I still have access to content I already paid for if I cancel my membership?

Canceling your membership will not prevent you from seeing the content you’ve already paid for. Once the 1st of the next month comes around though, you will no longer have access to that same content. 

What happens to my billing cycle if I cancel my membership in the middle of the month?

If you are on a monthly subscription and you choose to cancel in the middle of the month, your credit card will not be charged for the following month. You will still have access to the content you have paid for, up until the 1st of the following month. 

Can I get a refund for a membership payment I’ve already made?

In most cases, no. Due to to the nature of memberships and subscriptions, refunds are not given out when that membership is cancelled. However, in some situations where there is an annual membership that you choose to cancel, some creators may refund you a prorated amount up until the end of that billing cycle, at their discretion. 

​Is there a fee for canceling my Patreon membership?

There is no fee for canceling your membership. However, if you have any pending bills from any membership plan, you will still be charged for this amount. Learn more from Patreon’s support page.

Can I rejoin a creator’s Patreon after canceling my membership?

Yes. You can always rejoin your favorite creator to start seeing their content again.

Do Patreon creators see when I cancel membership?

Yes. Patreon’s creators will be able to see that you have canceled your membership, however, they can only see your username and email. They won’t have access to any of your other personal data.