# Cancelling Your Plan

Source: https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/billing-cancellation

You can cancel any KapsuleHost subscription yourself from KPanel, and by default your services keep running until the end of the billing period you have already paid for.

Cancelling is a billing action, not a delete button. Nothing is wiped the moment you confirm. This guide covers where the cancel controls live, the difference between cancelling at period end and cancelling immediately, what happens to your websites, domains and mailboxes, how to undo a cancellation, and how to pause instead if you only need a break.

## Before You Cancel

Cancellation is scheduled instantly, so do the export work first while every service is still running.

> **Warning:** Take copies of anything you want to keep BEFORE the paid period runs out. Once a subscription ends, the sites and mailboxes on it stop serving, and getting data back becomes a support request rather than a self-service download.

Work through this list:

- **Site files and databases.** Open the site, go to **Backups**, take a fresh manual backup, then use **Browse files** to pull down what you need. See [Taking a Backup](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/taking-a-backup).
- **Email.** Open **Email** in the sidebar, click the mailbox, and use **Export Mailbox** to download every message as a single `.mbox` file. Thunderbird, Apple Mail and most desktop clients open that format directly. Exports are capped at 5,000 messages each, so run it across date ranges if your mailbox is larger.
- **Domains.** Domain registrations are billed separately and are NOT cancelled with a hosting plan. If you want a domain to live at another registrar, start that move while your account is still active: see [Transferring Your Domain to Another Registrar](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/domains-transfer-out).

## Who Can Cancel

Cancelling requires the **Owner**, **Admin** or **Billing** role on the account. Anyone else sees the cancel controls disabled with a "Requires Owner, Admin or Billing" tooltip.

> **Note:** If your account is managed by a reseller, cancellation is handled by them and not by KapsuleHost directly. KPanel says so plainly: "Managed accounts must cancel through their reseller."

## Where to Cancel in KPanel

Cancellation is per subscription, so you start from the subscription you want to end:

1. Sign in to [KPanel](https://kpanel.kapsulehost.com).
2. Click **Billing** in the left sidebar. The **Plans** tab lists every active subscription.
3. Click **Manage** on the subscription you want to cancel. That opens its detail page at `/billing/subscriptions/<id>`.
4. Scroll to the **Actions** panel. The hint under it reads: "Cancel before renewal at any time. Your plan stays active until 8 November 2026."
5. Click **Cancel Subscription**.

![Subscription actions panel in KPanel Billing](https://support.kapsulehost.com/help/screenshots/billing-cancellation.e6ee2774.webp)

Each subscription is cancelled independently. If you hold several plans, cancelling one leaves the others untouched.

### Confirming the Cancellation

The confirmation dialog states exactly when service ends: "Your plan stays active until 8 November 2026. No further charges after that." Pick a reason from the list, then click **Confirm cancellation**.

The reasons offered are: too expensive, not using the features, switching to another provider, just testing or a temporary project, missing a feature I need, and other.

## What Happens After You Confirm

Your subscription does not end on the spot. It is flagged to stop at the end of the current billing period:

- The subscription page shows a **Cancellation Scheduled** banner: "This subscription ends on 8 November 2026. Changed your mind?"
- The status tile switches from "Renewing as scheduled" to an **Ends On** date.
- No further renewal charge is taken.
- Every service on that subscription keeps running normally until the date shown.

When the paid period finally runs out, KPanel is explicit about the consequences:

| What you have | What happens at period end |
|---|---|
| Websites on the plan | Every site on this plan stops serving |
| Domains | Registrations are not cancelled, but DNS and connected services stop |
| Mailboxes | Email on this plan stops sending and receiving |

> **Important:** Your domain registration survives a plan cancellation, but the services it points at do not. If a domain uses KapsuleHost nameservers and you cancel everything, the domain stays yours and keeps renewing while nothing it points at answers. Move the DNS, or the domain itself, before the period ends.

## Changing Your Mind

A scheduled cancellation is reversible right up to the period end date. While the **Cancellation Scheduled** banner is showing, the Actions panel offers **Keep my subscription**. Click it and the subscription goes back to renewing normally, with no gap in service and nothing to re-provision.

After the end date has passed you would be buying the plan again. Do it within 30 days of the plan's services stopping and contact us, and we move your websites and mailboxes onto the new plan before anything is deleted. See [Upgrading Your Plan](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/upgrading-your-plan) for how plan selection works.

## What Happens to Your Data

When a cancelled plan's services stop, everything on it (website files and databases, mailboxes and their stored mail) is kept for 30 days, then permanently deleted. We email you the exact date when the services stop, and again 7 days before it. Backups become unrecoverable within 31 days of deletion from live systems. Your domains are never deleted by a cancellation.

## Cancelling with a Refund Instead

If you are still inside the 30-day money-back window, you do not have to wait out the period. There is a path that ends service immediately and returns your payment in full. It is a different flow with different consequences, and it is covered in [The 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/billing-money-back).

> **Important:** A cancel-and-refund ends service the same day, not at period end. Your sites stop serving and your mailboxes stop delivering as soon as it completes. Only take that path once your exports are done.

## Pausing Instead of Cancelling

If you are stopping for a season, a holiday, or a paused client project, pausing is usually the better move. It keeps everything provisioned and configured while the meter stops.

1. Open the subscription's detail page as above.
2. In the **Actions** panel, click **Pause Subscription**.
3. Choose **1 month**, **2 months** or **3 months**.
4. Confirm with **Pause for 2 months**.

KPanel describes it as: "Your services stay active during the pause. No invoices are generated. Billing resumes automatically on the date you choose."

> **Tip:** A pause pushes your next billing date forward by the pause length rather than skipping a payment. Your data stays put, your sites keep serving, and billing restarts by itself, so there is nothing to remember to switch back on. You can end a pause early with **Resume now**.

While paused, the subscription shows a **Subscription Paused** banner reading "Billing resumes automatically on 8 November 2026. Your services are running and your data is safe."

## Cancelling Because a Payment Failed

If you are cancelling because a card is not going through, cancel is the wrong tool. A failed charge has its own retry and grace ladder, and updating the card resolves it without losing anything. See [What Happens When a Payment Fails](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/billing-failed-payment) and [Adding or Changing Your Payment Method](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/billing-payment-method).

## Troubleshooting

**The Cancel Subscription button is greyed out.** You are signed in with a role below Billing. Ask an account Owner or Admin to cancel, or to raise your role under **Settings**.

**"Subscription not found or already scheduled for cancellation".** This subscription is already flagged to end. Reload the detail page and look for the Cancellation Scheduled banner and its end date.

**"Managed accounts must cancel through their reseller."** Your account was created under a reseller who owns the billing relationship. Contact them.

**I cancelled the wrong subscription.** As long as the end date has not passed, click **Keep my subscription** on that subscription's page. Nothing has been torn down.

**I want the whole account closed, not just a plan.** Cancelling every subscription stops all billing, and 30 days after each plan's services stop, what was on it is deleted, but it does not close the account itself. Account removal is self-service: **Settings**, then **Profile**, then **Account removal**. See [Closing Your KapsuleHost Account](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/closing-your-account) for the full sequence, including the export step you should do first.

If anything about a cancellation looks wrong on your invoices, check [Billing and Invoices](https://support.kapsulehost.com/en-nz/billing-and-invoices), then contact us at [support@kapsulehost.com](mailto:support@kapsulehost.com) with the subscription name and the date you cancelled.