Refund Policy
Last updated: March 29, 2026
The short version
We want you to be happy. If you're not, we'll make it right. No 47-step support ticket process, no "talk to our retention specialist," no guilt trips. Just email us.
1. Free tier — nothing to refund
The Free plan is, well, free. No credit card required, no hidden charges, no "surprise — you've been on a trial this whole time!" moment. If you're on Free, there's literally nothing to refund. Enjoy the vibes. 🐤
2. Starter plan — $19/month
Within the first 14 days
Changed your mind? No worries. If you cancel within 14 days of your first payment, we'll issue a full refund. No questions asked. Well, we might ask one question ("how can we be better?") but you're not obligated to answer.
After 14 days
We don't offer prorated refunds for partial months. When you cancel, your subscription stays active until the end of your current billing cycle. You keep full access until then — we don't cut you off the moment you hit "cancel."
Think of it like a gym membership, except we actually want you to use the product.
3. When we'll always refund you
Regardless of timing, we'll issue a refund if:
- 💰 We charged you by mistake — billing errors happen, and we fix them fast
- 💰 You were double-charged — Stripe is reliable, but gremlins exist
- 💰 A feature we promised doesn't work — if you upgraded specifically for a feature and it's broken, that's on us
- 💰 We had an extended outage — if CostCanary was down for a significant portion of your billing cycle, we'll credit or refund you
4. How to request a refund
It's embarrassingly simple:
No support ticket IDs, no chatbots, no "your call is important to us." Just humans helping humans.
5. Cancellation ≠ refund
Just to be clear on the difference:
- Cancellation stops future charges. You keep access until the end of your current billing period.
- Refund returns money already charged. You can cancel and request a refund at the same time if you're within the 14-day window.
You can cancel anytime from your dashboard settings. It takes about 3 seconds. We timed it.
6. Annual plans (if we ever offer them)
We don't currently offer annual plans, but if we do in the future, refunds will work like this:
- Within 30 days: Full refund
- After 30 days: Prorated refund for remaining unused months
We'll update this section if and when annual billing launches.
7. Stripe handles the money
All payments and refunds are processed through Stripe. Refunds typically appear on your statement within 5–10 business days, depending on your bank. If you don't see it after 10 business days, email us and we'll chase it down.
We never store your credit card information directly. Stripe handles all that securely, and they're very good at it.
8. What we won't refund
In the interest of being transparent, here are the situations where we can't offer a refund:
- 🚫 You forgot you had a subscription (we send email receipts — check your spam folder!)
- 🚫 You didn't use the product (the data was there waiting for you)
- 🚫 You want a refund for months you already used and are now requesting retroactively
- 🚫 You violated our Terms of Service and got your account terminated
That said, if you feel your situation is unique, email us anyway. We're reasonable people and we'd rather keep you happy than win an argument over $19.
9. Our promise
The CostCanary Fairness Guarantee
If you ever feel like you've been charged unfairly, email us. We will always err on the side of doing right by you. Building trust matters more to us than one month's subscription fee. We're in this for the long haul, and we want you to be too.
10. Contact
Refund requests, billing questions, or just want to chat about AI cost optimization over email?
Average response time: a few hours. Maximum response time: 24 hours. We don't do "3–5 business days to hear back from us" — that's just for processing the actual refund.