When does your free trial end, and when should you cancel?

How trial dates are counted

A trial measured in days ends that many days after you start it. A trial measured in months ends on the same day of the month, however long the month is.

Why the day before, not the day of

The trial does not end at midnight on a date you choose. It ends at a moment the service chooses, often the same time of day you signed up, sometimes in a different time zone. Cancel on the final day and you may already be too late.

Apple spells this out for App Store subscriptions: its support guidance says a trial that is not cancelled more than 24 hours before the renewal date might renew. A full day's margin covers that rule and most others.

Three things to check when you sign up

• Does cancelling end access straight away? Some services let you keep the rest of the trial after you cancel; some cut you off on the spot. If access continues, cancel on day one and the worry is gone.
• Where do you cancel? A trial started inside an iPhone app is cancelled in your Apple subscriptions. One started on a website is cancelled on that website. Deleting the app cancels nothing.
• What is the price after the trial? Write it down next to the date. "Free for 7 days" is easy to remember; "then 59.99 a year" is the part that matters.

If you already missed it

Cancel now so it does not renew again, then ask for a refund through wherever you paid. Refunds are at the seller's discretion, but a request made the same day as an unwanted first charge is the easiest one to grant.