Cancel Atlas

The Cancellation Friction Index

Insights

Cancellation friction, in aggregate

What 2075 cited company records say in the aggregate — where the cancel journey breaks, which industries trap you, and how far "easy in, hard out" really goes. Every chart is Documented-Policy tier (cited public pages); Verified-Flow behaviour audits are pending, so these describe what companies publish, not yet what they do. The same numbers are machine-readable at /api/v1/insights.json.

Context

The state of cancellation in 2026

Why a Cancellation Friction Index exists — and why this page measures what 2,075 companies publish, set against what the law, the research, and regulators say. All figures below are externally sourced; the charts that follow are Cancel Atlas’s own computed data.

  1. Regulation is in flux — and the headline US rule is not in force.

    The FTC's federal “Click-to-Cancel” rule was vacated by the 8th Circuit on 8 Jul 2025 (procedural grounds) and is not law; the FTC reopened rulemaking in 2026. Meanwhile California's Automatic Renewal Law (live 1 Jul 2025) and the UK's DMCC subscription regime (≈Spring 2027) do mandate easy, same-channel cancellation. Which rules bind you depends on jurisdiction — which is why every Cancel Atlas score is tagged per jurisdiction. Sources: 8th Cir. vacatur · California ARL · UK DMCC.

  2. The harm is large, recurring, and mostly invisible to the people paying it.

    US consumers underestimate their own subscription spend by about $133/month (guess $86 vs actual $219), 42% have forgotten an active charge, and only about 24% rate cancelling “very easy.” FTC negative-option complaints ran ~70/day in 2024, up from ~42/day in 2021. Sources: C+R Research · West Monroe · FTC.

  3. The friction is asymmetric by design — and now measured.

    Peer-reviewed research (CHI 2024) clocked subscription cancellation at 6.2 clicks vs 4.3 to subscribe in the EU (3.5→5.8 in the US; one outlet took 10 clicks to leave). Large-scale audits find 76–97% of sites use at least one dark pattern, with “obstruction” / hard-to-cancel among the most common. The principle regulators now codify: leaving should be as easy as joining. Sources: Staying at the Roach Motel, CHI 2024 · OECD · Dark Patterns at Scale.

  4. Enforcement is catching up — and validates naming names.

    Amazon settled the FTC's Prime-cancellation case for $2.5B in 2025 over its “Iliad” cancel maze; Adobe (DOJ), Uber One, Match/Tinder, Cerebral, ABCmouse and others face or have settled similar actions. When a regulator has already documented a company's friction, an adverse grade rests on public record. Sources: Amazon $2.5B · FTC dark-patterns report.

Full cited synthesis: see the methodology notes. Cancel Atlas turns this diffuse, well-documented harm into per-company, per-jurisdiction, dated, cited evidence — the gap no neutral, machine-readable index has filled.

Distribution

How the 2,075-strong index grades out

Grade distributionGrade distribution across 2075 companies: A 98, B 1233, C 565, D 150, F 29A grade98 (5%)B grade1233 (59%)C grade565 (27%)D grade150 (7%)F grade29 (1%)⊗ cancelatlas.com

Most companies land at B/C on documented transparency. A grades are rare (a clear, self-serve, well-disclosed exit); F grades mark phone-only or undisclosed terms. Documented-Policy tier — behaviour audit pending.

Easy in, hard out

The asymmetry: joining vs leaving

Cancellation channel asymmetry11% of companies offer no online cancel; 29% route you to a phone.Self-serve online cancel84%Phone is a cancel channel29%No online cancel at all11%⊗ cancelatlas.com

Signing up is almost always one online click. Leaving isn't: 223 companies (11%) offer no online cancellation at all, and 29% make a phone call one of the only ways out. That gap — easy in, hard out — is the core of the index.

Where it breaks

The weakest part of the cancel journey

Mean score per CES dimensionAverage of each CES-1.1 dimension across all companies; lowest = the system-wide weak point.Refund disclosed65.8 avgNotice disclosed68.4 avgSelf-serve cancel path69.2 avgFindability72.8 avgChannels disclosed77.6 avg⊗ cancelatlas.com

Averaged across the whole index, self-serve cancel paths are the weakest dimension (69.2/100) — companies disclose that you can cancel more clearly than they give you a button to do it. In fact 176 companies (8%) publish no findable direct cancel path at all. Weighted: cancel-path 30, channels 20, notice 15, refund 15, findability 20.

By industry

Hardest and easiest industries to leave

Industry friction leaderboardMean documented-policy score per industry (>=8 companies), worst first.Business formation (n=8)53.0Gym & fitness (n=70)62.5Insurance (auto) (n=29)62.7Telecom & ISP (n=200)63.4Analytics (n=15)64.5Dating apps (n=45)67.1Retail & membership (n=35)68.0Energy & utilities (n=33)68.4News & publishing (n=74)68.6Meal kits & food (n=85)68.7Apparel & beauty boxes (n=59)69.6Developer tools (n=26)70.0Fitness & audio apps (n=80)70.5Home security (n=25)70.5Telehealth & Rx (n=54)70.6AI tools (n=103)70.7Personal finance (n=52)71.6Software / SaaS (n=243)72.3Travel subscriptions (n=16)72.5Fintech / Neobank (n=12)72.8Fitness app (n=12)73.0Antivirus & VPN (n=38)73.3E-learning (n=94)73.7Streaming (n=138)73.7Pet subscriptions (n=36)74.1Food delivery memberships (n=18)74.3Fintech & banking (n=10)75.2Streaming (Video) (n=22)75.9Web hosting & domains (n=27)76.1Music & audio (n=38)76.3Gaming subscriptions (n=18)76.5Cloud infrastructure (n=21)77.0Mental health (n=20)77.8Streaming (video) (n=14)78.0Video streaming (n=9)79.0Insurance (n=24)83.6⊗ cancelatlas.com

Mean documented score per industry (≥8 companies), hardest at top. The pattern is consistent with the thesis: contract/phone-gated categories (insurance, telecom, gyms) trail self-serve software/streaming. Category mix matters — see the jurisdiction caveat below.

Machine-readable signals

Structured signals, at a glance

Tier-A structured signalsShare of companies with each documented structured signal.Documented cancel method99%Cites a refund page39%Offers pause / freeze24%Phone / in-person to cancel7%⊗ cancelatlas.com

These are the first machine-readable structured signals (/api/v1/signals.json) — derived per record from its cancellation channels, links, and pause data, for the agents and tools that increasingly cancel subscriptions on people's behalf. Pricing model across the index: 2,029 recurring, 43 one-time/lifetime, 3 hybrid. Deeper text-extracted signals (refund-claim conflicts, retention walls, notice windows) are in development.

Refunds

What happens to your money when you leave

Refund stance distributionShare of companies by documented refund stance.No refund (explicit)669 (32%)Conditional / windowed419 (20%)Not documented987 (48%)⊗ cancelatlas.com

Where a refund stance is documented, “no refund” is the most common (32%); 20% offer a conditional/windowed refund, and 48% publish no refund stance at all (an absence, not necessarily a denial). On notice: of 566 companies with a documented posture, 449 let you cancel anytime and 117 impose an advance-notice window. The source-page pass re-fetched 1,251 of 2,075 records' cited URLs (60% readable), adding source-verified governing law (304 named), arbitration clauses (327), and EU-withdrawal waivers. A cross-page heuristic flagged 129 possible marketing-vs-terms conflicts; on editor review 5 were genuine contradictions — the rest were consistent conditional policies (a money-back window with non-refundable exceptions), deliberately not published. Machine-readable at /api/v1/signals.json.

Documented by regulators

Enforcement-anchored: companies a regulator has named

These 12 companies have a government (FTC/DOJ/State-AG) or court-approved settlement specifically about cancellation difficulty or deceptive auto-renewal — their friction is established public record, not Cancel Atlas’s opinion. Note the tension: several grade B/C here on documented policy (e.g. Amazon Prime — yet fined $2.5B for its actual cancel flow). That is the disclosure-vs-behaviour gap our pending flow audit is built to close: what a company publishes and what it makes you do can diverge sharply. Each row links the official source. Machine-readable in /api/v1/signals.json (regulatory_action). Penalty figures are as reported; verify against the primary docket. Pending/ongoing matters are labelled.

Transparency

Which official policy pages are cited

Official-policy-link coverageShare of records with a cited cancel / refund / terms / privacy page.Cancellation page97%Privacy / data page50%Terms page55%Refund / returns page39%⊗ cancelatlas.com

Every record cites a cancellation page; far fewer surface a dedicated refund, terms, or privacy page. Low coverage means “not published or not yet recorded,” not a definitive negative — these links never affect the score.

Pause instead of cancel

Where you can freeze rather than quit

Pause availability by industryShare of companies per industry offering a documented pause/freeze.Meal kits & food (n=85)89%Gym & fitness (n=70)87%Apparel & beauty boxes (n=59)86%Pet subscriptions (n=36)83%Telehealth & Rx (n=54)44%Telecom & ISP (n=200)36%Fitness app (n=12)25%Fitness & audio apps (n=80)24%E-learning (n=94)22%News & publishing (n=74)19%Retail & membership (n=35)17%Streaming (n=138)17%⊗ cancelatlas.com

A pause option can be genuine flexibility — or a retention nudge that keeps you subscribed. Shown per industry (≥8 companies); informational, not scored.

By jurisdiction

Average score by market (read with care)

Mean score by jurisdictionMean documented-policy score per jurisdiction (>=8 companies).MX (n=11)62.3SG (n=18)64.1PH (n=9)65.2PT (n=8)66.4ZA (n=16)66.5AE (n=15)66.7UK (n=49)67.5ES (n=27)68.1CH (n=13)68.5ID (n=9)69.0IN (n=43)69.5CA (n=47)70.0DK (n=10)70.2BR (n=25)70.4PL (n=11)70.6US (n=1223)70.8IL (n=9)71.7IT (n=19)71.9FR (n=42)72.1NZ (n=15)72.5SE (n=18)72.7CZ (n=9)73.6NO (n=9)74.2JP (n=17)74.5KR (n=19)74.6AU (n=66)75.2DE (n=60)75.8NL (n=13)76.3GB (n=85)76.6⊗ cancelatlas.com

Directional only — heavily category-confounded. A market's average reflects which kinds of companies we’ve indexed there as much as its law. The rigorous law-effect comparison needs same-category pairs (e.g. German vs US gyms, where Germany’s mandated cancel button moves the score within the same category). Treat this as a coverage map, not a league table.

Freshness

How current the index is

Freshness of the index100% of records were verified within 30 days of the most recent check.Verified ≤ 30 days ago207531-90 days ago0Over 90 days ago0⊗ cancelatlas.com

100% of the index was checked within the last 30 days. Freshness is measured against the most recent verification date; this view surfaces decay as records age between re-checks (the weekly snapshot + planned auto-freshness engine keep it current).

Evolution

How the index is changing over time

Tracking began 2026-06-10 (1 snapshot so far). Every weekly snapshot records the full metric set — grades, dimension means, asymmetry, coverage, pause, and per-industry & per-jurisdiction averages — to data/snapshots/metrics.ndjson and the public trends API. The first evolution line chart appears at the next snapshot. Baseline: mean score 68.6 · 17 A-grades · 6% with no online cancel.

The transparency floor

Companies with no published cancellation page

A clear, self-serve cancellation page should be table stakes. These 3 companies we checked publish no findable cancellation page at all — so there is nothing to grade. This is the absence of a policy, not an F (an F is a poor documented policy). We name them to push the standard forward, and we will score each one the day it publishes a real cancellation page. Listed a company in error? Show us the page and we'll grade it. Machine-readable at /api/v1/no-policy.json.

Generated 2026-06-04 from the live index (2075 companies). Charts are statements of opinion grounded in dated, cited public facts, computed from a published methodology; they never alter any company's score. Found an error? Submit a correction.