A service is cancelled by requesting it in the client area. Stopping the payments is not enough on its own: an unpaid service is suspended rather than closed, and the invoices keep coming until the cancellation is on record.
Making the request
- Open Services and click the service.
- Press Request cancellation.
- Choose when it should take effect, and say why if you want to. The reason is read, and it is the only way we learn what went wrong.
- Submit. The pending request is shown on the service page until it is carried out.
Immediate
The service is closed as soon as the request is processed. Everything on it (files, databases, mailboxes, the virtual machine, the container) is removed. Choose this only when you have everything you need off it, and remember that you are giving up the remainder of a period you have already paid for.
End of period
The service keeps running until the next due date and is then closed. No renewal invoice is raised for the period after that, and an invoice that has already been issued for it is cancelled. This is the right choice almost every time: you use what you have paid for, nothing is lost in a hurry, and you still have until the due date to move the data.
"End of period" means the end of the billing period you are currently in: the next due date shown on the service page, not the end of the calendar month.
Before the date arrives
- Take copies of what you want to keep: files, databases and, on a hosting account, the contents of the mailboxes. A download from the control panel is the simplest way.
- Move any domain that points at the service, or at least change its nameservers, before the service closes.
- If other people use e-mail on the account, give them warning. Mail stops the moment the account does.
Money already paid
Cancelling stops future invoices. It does not return what has already been paid: payments are non-refundable, the exception being where we are unable to provide the service you paid for. If you think that is the situation, raise it on a ticket and say what happened.
Domains are separate
Cancelling hosting does not cancel a domain, because a domain is a registration in its own right and you keep it. To stop a domain renewing, switch auto-renew off under Domains. It will then expire at the registry on its expiry date.