How to delete your Spotify account: cancel your Spotify subscription and close your Spotify account for good

Spotify is still a poster child for the music streaming industry, with 138 million paid subscribers it is a leading music service used worldwide. The Swedish company is holding its own in the industry, but has taken many steps to raise awareness of the company and increase revenue.

This, coupled with increasing competition from similarly priced Apple Music, Amazon Music Unlimited, Tidal, etc., is causing some users to switch allegiances.

In a bid to attract more people to the service, supposedly in the hope that they'll upgrade to the paid plan, Spotify launched a new free tier in April.

Prior to launch, Spotify offered two tiers – an ad-free one for $9,99 per month and an ad-supported free tier. The former allows you to download songs to listen to offline and does not restrict access, the latter limits the number of songs you can access, popular playlists and only shuffle. Under the new Spotify Free tier, you can listen to any song from 15 Discovery playlists, on demand.

Spotify also offers Student Accounts, Family Accounts, and Spotify Duo (for two people at a discount). Each tier is competitively priced compared to others on the market, but if you're ready to save some cash each month, it might be time to cancel your subscription.

In this article, we will tell you how to cancel your Spotify Premium account.

Things to know before your cancellation

If you are a Spotify Premium customer, you will need to cancel your Spotify subscription before closing your account. With this, all the playlists you downloaded for offline listening will be deleted; you don't own that music and as soon as you end your subscription, you will lose those locally stored playlists.

If you simply unsubscribe but continue to use Spotify Free, you will still be able to stream those playlists and they will appear in your listening history. However, if you completely remove Spotify, you will lose access to these playlists both online and offline.

Also, deleting your Spotify account will cause your username to be lost. Also, if you have a student discount, you won't be able to apply it to another account until a year after you first signed up, if you decide to switch back to Spotify.

How to Cancel Your Spotify Subscription

Before deleting your account, you will need to cancel any paid subscriptions you have with the service. This may sound simple enough, but there is a problem you may run into; where to cancel it?

Simply going to the Spotify website to cancel your account only works if you set up the service through Spotify. Some users signed up through an iTunes subscription, while others may have used their Google Play subscription or another service. The first thing to do is figure out where you're paying for the service and cancel it accordingly.

Cancel Subscription – Spotify Website

If you signed up for the Premium service directly through Spotify, follow these steps to cancel the service:

Visit the Spotify website and sign in. On the left side, click the Account Management tab.

Next, click on the “Change plan” option at the bottom of the screen.

Notes: Note the date in the screenshot above. You will still have access to the Premium service until that date.

Finally, scroll down to the Free section and click "Cancel Premium". Follow the previous instructions to complete your cancellation.

Next, you will be asked to confirm your cancellation. Click "Yes, cancel".

You will now be taken to a cancellation page that tells you the end date of your subscription as well as the option to provide feedback. Fill in the best answers and click "Send" at the bottom.

Cancel Subscription – iTunes

iTunes is a service that allows you to purchase other subscriptions using your Apple ID payment methods. If you did, follow these steps to cancel your subscription:

On your iPhone, open Settings and tap "iTunes & App Store".

Next, tap your Apple ID at the top. In the pop-up window that appears, tap "View Apple ID".

Tap on "Subscriptions"

Find and tap on your Spotify subscription which will be listed on the screen below.

Tap "Cancel Subscription". As stated above, you will still have access to the Premium service until the next billing date.

If you signed up for the service using another partner (i.e. your cellphone provider, TV provider, or other service), you will need to cancel by following that outlet's instructions.

How to delete your Spotify account

Once your subscription is cancelled, you will need to contact Spotify to permanently delete your account. As mentioned above, there is no way to recover your account once it is closed. Also, if you choose to reopen your account, you will need to choose a different username according to Spotify. The same username cannot be used more than once.

Here's how to remove Spotify:

Visit Spotify's cancellation page and click "Account".

Click on “I want to close my account”.

Click on “Contact to close”.

Fill in the information form and click on “Start chat”.

A Spotify representative will begin typing, explaining that you want to close your account permanently. The representative will send you a confirmation email when complete.

Frequently Asked Questions

There are a few other things you need to know about Spotify account cancellation. Check out our FAQs below:

I canceled my account, but I was charged again. What happened?

Assuming you canceled your Premium subscription, the only reason you would have been charged again is if the cancellation wasn't set before the renewal date.

The first thing you should do if you were charged for a Spotify subscription after cancellation is to check your email for confirmation. There must be the cancellation date. If everything checks out and the bitrate was in error, contact Spotify Support.

Can I reactivate a closed account?

First, it's important to note that you can reactivate your paid subscription (as well as all playlists and benefits) if your account is still open.

Once you choose to close your account, there are no recovery options available. The account and all its data are gone when you close the account. Your only option will be to open a new account and create new playlists.

I signed up for Spotify through Facebook, can I just disconnect it?

Unfortunately no. Spotify offers its users several different login options and if Facebook is yours, you will need to close your account following the instructions above and start over with a new account.

Once you have canceled your account, use your email and a unique password to create the new account. Beware, if you do this, all your previous music, playlists and downloads will not be available until you reset them all.

However, if you set up your Spotify account with an email and password and then later connect it to Facebook, you can disconnect your accounts. All you have to do is open Spotify on a web browser and go to settings. Then click "Sign out of Facebook" when the option appears.

What can I do if I can't log in?

If you are unable to log in to your Spotify account, you will have a hard time getting the service cancelled. Of course, you can always contact your financial institution to halt future payments (this may or may not be the best solution depending on how you pay for the service), or you can fill out Spotify's form. Contact form for more help.

If for some reason you can't cancel through the website, iTunes, or where you started the service (even if fraudulent), contact the company for assistance.

I don't have the option to cancel Spotify from the website. What is happening?

If you can't cancel Spotify directly using Spotify, chances are you signed up for the service through a third party. It could be Apple, Google Play (at some point) or even a bundle of services like Hulu. The fastest way to find out who you signed up for the service with is to check your email (look for the confirmation email when you first signed up) or your bank statements.

Then log into that service and follow the cancellation steps.