I signed up for a three-month free trial of YouTube Premium and am not sold on the benefits. How can I cancel my subscription before I get billed at the normal monthly rate?
Remember when Websites were more interested in delivering useful services than maximizing their revenue? Those were the halcyon early days of the Web and we’re long past that point for a variety of reasons. Big companies have evolved too, and the YouTube of today has very little in common with the original YouTube company that Google purchased back in 2006 (for $1.6 billion in stock). To be fair, though, expenses for running the #2 Website on the Internet have undoubtedly gone way up too, so those adverts keep things afloat.
Unfortunately, endless ads can also be quite annoying, so YouTube introduced something called “YouTube Red” back in 2015 with the ability for people to pay to avoid ads. That was rebranded in 2018 to YouTube Premium, which is what it’s still called today. For power users who watch a lot of YouTube, it’s probably a good deal, but for the rest of us, the value equation might not be quite right, as you’ve learned.
As of this writing, the YouTube Premium cost is $13.99/mo (or $167.88/year). Honestly, that’s a lot to avoid the ads in YouTube videos you watch. Okay, there are some additional features that worth having too, but… well.. let’s look at how to cancel a YouTube Premium subscription and it’ll try to convince us that it is worth the money.
FIND YOUR SUBSCRIPTIONS
Start by going to YouTube.com and clicking on your profile icon on the top right. A menu appears:
Mine is slightly different because I also have my own @AskDaveTaylor channel on YouTube, but the entry you want to choose is “Purchases and memberships“, as highlighted.
There’s my Premium membership: “Individual membership: $13.99/mo”. To cancel it, I’ll click on “Manage membership“.
MANAGE YOUR SUBSCRIPTIONS
This opens up a panel with lots more information about YouTube Premium:
You can see that my free trial ends in two days so it’s a perfect time to cancel rather than be caught up in the auto-renewal loop! I can pause my membership for up to six months, but after three months with YouTube Premium, I just don’t see the value myself, so I’m going to cancel.
That’s done by clicking on the “Cancel” link adjacent to “Free trial ends Dec 11”. It brings up a page with more information about what’s included with YouTube Premium:
I have a Spotify subscription, so YouTube Music isn’t of interest to me, and background play? Eh, I watch YouTube when I’m watching the video so that’s not of value either.
Mathwise, I’ve watched over 20 hours of ad-free YouTube. Let’s assume 25 hours. Across 3 * $13.99 in equivalent subscription fees [waived by the 3mo trial]. That means I paid over $40 to avoid ads for a few dozen videos. I just don’t see it as worth it for me.
CANCEL THAT SUBSCRIPTION
To proceed, click on “Yes, cancel“. You then get to see the kite-flying woman:
Done deal. Now on the Purchases and Subscriptions page the display is a bit different:
That’s it.
Changed your mind and want to resurrect YouTube Premium? Go to youtube.com/premium and sign up again:
That’s it. Good luck!
Pro Tip: As a YouTuber – @AskDaveTaylor – I have learned quite a bit about how to get the most out of YouTube. Please do check out my other YouTube help tutorials for more ideas for viewers and video creators both. Thanks!