A TryMyCompany report · 2026
The 2026 Subscription Exit Report
We put 167popular subscriptions and free trials through one test: how hard is the exit, not how good the product. Good news first, most of them let you go without a fuss. The catch is you only find out which ones don’t once you’re already mid breakup.
Most subscriptions let you go without drama
Of the 167brands we graded, 103 pulled an A or a B: cancel it yourself, online, in a click or two, no drama required. Streaming makes the case hardest to argue with. Eight of the ten streaming services we track are straight A students, and not one dips below a C. If every category acted like streaming, this report would be a single paragraph and we’d all go home early.
They do not. The friction is real, but it is concentrated in a handful of categories, and once you know where it lives it stops being a surprise.
Where the friction lives
Three categories do most of the work here. Pet insurance is the toughest room in the house: six of eight plans land a D, and closing one usually means a phone call and a hold song. The paywalled press is right behind it, both The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal would rather chat with you than let you click a cancel button. And gyms are where friction stops being a quirk and starts showing up in regulatory filings, which brings us to the six.
The documented six
An F is not for a service that is merely annoying to quit. We reserve it for a documented finding: a case where a regulator has acted, or the process is outright deceptive. Six brands in our catalog earned one, and in every case a regulator or court acted.
- FLA Fitness
The FTC sued LA Fitness in 2025 over its cancellation practices. Members cancel in person or by certified mail.
- FEquinox
New York's Attorney General settled with Equinox in 2025 over its cancellation practices. Cancellation is in person or by certified mail.
- FJustFab
A coalition of state attorneys general settled with JustFab in 2025 over its enrollment and cancellation practices.
- FHomeaglow (ForeverClean)
Washington's Attorney General settled with Homeaglow in 2025 over its enrollment and cancellation practices. Closing the account can trigger an early-termination fee.
- FAmazon Prime
The FTC secured a record 2.5 billion dollar settlement against Amazon in 2025 over Prime's deceptive sign-up and its multi-screen cancellation maze.
- FAdobe Creative Cloud
The Department of Justice and FTC settled with Adobe for 150 million dollars over a hidden early-termination fee and a cancellation flow that made leaving hard.
We want to be precise about what that F means. It is a statement about a cancellation process and a public regulatory record, not a verdict on whether the product is any good. A brand can run a fine gym and still make leaving harder than it should be. The grade is there to tell you that up front.
Why this is a good year to look
Cancellation friction stopped being a private grievance somewhere around 2025 and became a public one. Regulators and lawmakers spent the year on it, from the FTC’s click-to-cancel push to the state actions listed above. The direction is not subtle: getting out should be exactly as easy as getting in. Consider our grades a standing scoreboard of who’s already there and who’s still doing homework.
On the record
You do not have to take our word for it. Here is what the people building, policing, and defending subscriptions are saying, on the record and in their own words.
The direction of travel
“We are a one-click cancel.”
“If you trust your customers, you give them the option, you're going to see higher retention, higher acquisition.”
The regulators
“The evidence showed that Amazon used sophisticated subscription traps designed to manipulate consumers into enrolling in Prime, and then made it exceedingly hard for consumers to end their subscription.”
“The FTC's complaint describes a scenario that too many Americans have experienced: a gym membership that seems impossible to cancel.”
The other side of it
“We are disappointed that the FTC has chosen to pursue this complaint. The allegations are without merit”
The advocates
“For too long, sellers have competed on who can design a more effective subscription trap rather than who can offer a product that people actually want to keep paying for.”
What you can do about it
You do not have to memorize any of this. Timing is the whole problem: a renewal outruns your memory, not your judgment. Track a subscription with us and a reminder lands before every renewal, so the grade stops mattering. Stay or go, on your terms, with the exact steps already in hand.
“Most subscriptions are easy to leave. The problem is you cannot tell which ones are not until you are already trying to get out. We grade the exit up front so the answer is boring instead of a surprise.”
See the full data
Every grade in this report lives out in the open in the Exit Index, with the full method behind the letters in how we grade. Journalists and researchers: cite away, we built it to be quoted.
Browse the Exit IndexMethodology: grades reflect the cancellation flow published by each brand, verified as part of our weekly subscription-news sweep and last reviewed July 2026. F grades require a documented regulatory or legal finding. Figures cover the 167 published brands in our catalog at the time of writing.