Free trial reminder: how to never get charged after a trial

At signup, write down the exact charge date rather than "in 30 days". Set the free trial reminder for two days before it. Two days is the smallest gap that clears Apple's 24-hour cancellation rule and Google Play's authorization hold.

By the Subby team·Last updated September 2, 2026

Why "in 30 days" is the part that fails

Almost nobody forgets that they started a trial. What they forget is when it converts, because at signup the service tells you a duration and your brain stores a vague one. Thirty days from a Tuesday in August is a date in September you have never once thought about. Write the date down at signup and the problem shrinks to a calendar entry.

The second failure is harder to spot. People set the free trial reminder for the charge date itself, and by then the money has usually moved or the cancellation window has closed.

How to never get charged after a free trial

1. At signup, write down the exact charge date, not the length. Most services show it on the confirmation screen or in the welcome email. If yours doesn't, count the days on a calendar. Don't count months (see the box below).
2. Note who is billing you. Apple, Google Play, PayPal, or the service itself. This decides where you cancel and which deadline applies, and guessing wrong is a common reason a cancellation "didn't work". Whoever takes the money owns the cancellation.
3. Look up the deadline that applies to you. The table below has the three cases that cover almost everything. Once you know which one is yours, the steps are in the guides to cancel subscriptions on iPhone and cancel subscriptions on Google Play.
4. Set the reminder for two days before the charge date. The morning of the charge is too late to rely on. Two days gives you a working day of slack if the cancel flow needs a browser you don't have open, a password you've forgotten, or a support ticket.
5. Decide now what would make you keep it. One sentence, written next to the reminder: "keep if I've used it more than twice." Deciding in advance turns a 20-minute deliberation into a 20-second one.
6. When the reminder fires, act the same day. Cancel, or keep it on purpose and move the reminder to two days before the next renewal. The other route is to cancel right after signup, which moves the decision to the first day instead of the last.
7. Confirm, then keep the receipt. Watch for the confirmation screen, and keep the email that lands afterwards. A cancellation you didn't see confirmed may not have happened, and that is the most common cause of "I canceled and was still charged".

Each store's cancel deadline

Why the free trial reminder goes two days early

Two days is not superstition. It covers Apple's 24-hour rule and Google's authorization hold, which can appear up to 48 hours ahead of the renewal. Mostly, though, it is there for the evening you meant to do it and something else happened. If a service needs written notice, use its notice period plus two days instead.

Where the reminder should live

A calendar entry works, as long as you're the kind of person who reads calendar alerts. What it won't hold is the price, the billing cycle and which card the charge hits, so a year later you're working all of it out again.

Subby's reminders hold all three, and they're on the free tier. You add the trial yourself with its first charge date, then set how much notice you want, from same-day to a week ahead or any custom lead time. The notification tells you what's about to happen and for how much, rather than that "something" is due. If a payment date passes and you haven't marked it paid, the reminder comes back for another seven days. That's the difference between noticing a charge and noticing it in time to ask for a refund.

Subby has no bank connection and no account to create, so it only knows about the trial once you type it in. You do that once, at signup, while you still know the date.