How to cancel a Twitch subscription

Twitch does not sell you one subscription. You subscribe to individual channels, each billed separately on its own date, so cancelling means dealing with each one rather than flipping a single switch.

The useful part is that not all of them recur. Prime subs and gifted subs expire on their own and cannot be cancelled because there is nothing to stop. Working out which of yours are which is most of the job, and it often turns out there is nothing to do at all.

Which of your subs actually renew

Four different things on Twitch get called a subscription. Only two of them charge you again:

Paid channel subs (Tier 1, 2 or 3) — these auto-renew. This is what you need to cancel.
Twitch Turbo — an account-wide ad-free subscription, not tied to a channel. Auto-renews, and is cancelled in a different place.
Prime subs — the free monthly sub included with Amazon Prime. Never auto-renews. You have to re-apply it by hand every month, so if you simply stop, it lapses.
Gifted subs — bought for you by someone else. Never auto-renews. It expires at the end of the gifted period and you are not charged.

If the only subs you have are Prime or gifted, you are not being billed for them and there is nothing to cancel. People regularly go looking for a cancel button that does not exist for exactly this reason.

Cancelling a paid channel subscription

Twitch calls this "don't renew" rather than "cancel", which is why it can be hard to spot. You keep the sub until the end of the period you have already paid for.

Sign in at twitch.tv in a browser.
Open your Subscriptions page — twitch.tv/subscriptions, or Subscriptions in the account menu.
Find the channel in the list and click the cog icon on the upper right of that entry.
Choose Don't Renew Subscription.
Confirm on the next page.

The setting is per channel. Cancelling one does nothing to the others, and the renewal dates are staggered, so work down the whole list rather than stopping at the one you remembered.

If you subscribed in the Twitch app on an iPhone

Subs bought inside the iOS app are billed by Apple, and Twitch cannot cancel them for you — the website will show the subscription but the "don't renew" option will not work on it.

Open Settings and tap your name at the top.
Tap Subscriptions.
Tap the Twitch entry, then Cancel Subscription.

In-app subs also cost more than the same tier bought on the web, because Apple's commission is built into the price. If you want to keep supporting the channel for less, cancel, wait for it to lapse, then subscribe again at twitch.tv. The Apple subscriptions guide covers what to do if Twitch is not listed on that screen.

Cancelling Twitch Turbo

Turbo is separate from every channel sub and does not appear alongside them. Cancelling all your channel subs leaves Turbo running, which is a common reason people find a Twitch charge after cancelling "everything".

Go to your Settings on twitch.tv, then the Turbo section (or open twitch.tv/turbo directly).
Choose Cancel Turbo and confirm.

If you bought Turbo through the iOS app, cancel it in iPhone Settings instead, exactly as above.

Charges that are not subscriptions

If you are working through a statement, these are one-off purchases and there is nothing recurring to stop:

Bits — bought in bundles and spent on cheering. Charged once per bundle.
Gift subs you bought for other people — a single payment each, even when you gift several at once.
One-off tier upgrades — the difference charged when moving up mid-period.

A batch of gifted subs bought in one session can look like a recurring charge on a statement because the merchant descriptor is identical to a renewal. Only the entries on your Subscriptions page with a renewal date actually recur.

What happens after you cancel

The sub stays active until the end of the period you have already paid for, and nothing is refunded for the unused portion as standard. Your sub badge, emotes and ad-free viewing on that channel all last until that date.

After it lapses you keep following the channel — following is free and entirely separate from subscribing. Your account, chat history and Bits balance are unaffected. What you lose is the subscriber badge, the channel's subscriber emotes and, on most channels, ad-free playback.

Your sub streak on that channel ends too, which matters to some people more than the money. A lapsed month breaks it and it cannot be restored, so if the streak is the reason you are hesitating, that is the actual trade-off.

For a charge that has already gone through, request a refund at reportaproblem.apple.com for Apple purchases, or through Twitch support for web purchases.

Common questions

Do Twitch subs renew automatically?

Paid channel subs and Twitch Turbo do. Prime subs and gifted subs do not — they expire on their own and cannot be cancelled, because nothing is set to charge you. A Prime sub has to be re-applied by hand each month, so stopping means simply not re-applying it.

How do I cancel a Twitch Prime subscription?

You do not need to. A Prime sub is free with Amazon Prime and never auto-renews on the channel — it lapses at the end of the month unless you manually apply it again. If you want to stop Amazon Prime itself, that is cancelled in your Amazon account, not on Twitch.

I cancelled my Twitch subs but I'm still being charged. Why?

Most often Twitch Turbo, which is account-wide and does not appear with your channel subs, or a channel further down the list that was missed — renewal dates are staggered. Failing that, check whether the charge is Bits or gifted subs, which are one-off purchases rather than subscriptions.

Do I lose my sub badge and emotes when I cancel?

Not straight away. They last until the end of the period you have paid for, then the badge and that channel's subscriber emotes go. You keep following the channel for free, and your sub streak ends once a month lapses.

Is Twitch cheaper on the website than in the app?

Yes. Subscribing inside the iOS app costs more than the same tier on twitch.tv, because Apple's commission is passed into the price. Cancelling the Apple-billed sub and re-subscribing on the web once it lapses supports the same channel for less.