You cancel a World of Warcraft subscription at Battle.net: Account Settings, then Games & Subscriptions, then Manage next to your WoW account, then Cancel Subscription.

That switches off recurring billing. It does not end your access. Your game time runs to the end of the period you have already paid for, and you keep playing until then. There is no cancellation fee and no minimum term.

The part that costs people money is what sits either side of that. Cancelling and closing your account are different actions, and Blizzard does not refund remaining subscription or game time when an account is closed, so doing them in the wrong order throws away whatever you have left. A subscription bought through a console store or a mobile platform cannot be cancelled on Battle.net at all. And prepaid game time is not a subscription in the first place, so there is nothing there to cancel even though it looks identical on your account page.

This guide covers the cancellation itself, what you keep afterwards, the refund windows, and the account-deletion trap that catches people who think closing the account is the tidy version of cancelling.

What This Guide Covers

• First, Work Out Who Is Billing You
• How To Cancel WoW Subscription On Battle.net
• What Cancelling Actually Does: Recurring Billing Versus Game Time
• If I Cancel My WoW Subscription, Can I Still Play?
• Game Time, WoW Tokens And Prepaid Cards: Nothing To Cancel
• What The Subscription Covers, And What It Costs
• Blizzard Refund Policy: The 14-Day And 2-Hour Rules
• Delete Battle.net Account: A Different And Permanent Action
• Cancelling, Closing And Deleting Are Not The Same Thing
• When The Cancellation Does Not Stick
• Escalating
• Frequently Asked Questions
• The Short Version

First, Work Out Who Is Billing You

Most people pay Blizzard directly and can go straight to the next section. But the WoW subscription is also sold through console stores and third-party platforms, and those hold the billing themselves. Cancelling in the wrong place changes nothing and the next charge lands on schedule. Your most recent receipt settles it.

Who is billing you	How to tell	Where to cancel
Blizzard directly	Receipt from Blizzard, statement shows a Blizzard or Battle.net descriptor, subscription visible under Games & Subscriptions	Battle.net Account Settings, Games & Subscriptions, Manage, Cancel Subscription
A console store	Receipt from the console platform, no Blizzard charge on your card, subscription bought on the console	That platform’s subscription management. Blizzard cannot cancel it for you
A mobile or third-party platform	Receipt from that store rather than Blizzard	The store you bought it from, under its own subscriptions area
Nobody, because it is prepaid game time. No recurring charge exists.	You redeemed a game time card or a WoW Token.	Nothing to cancel. It simply expires

One more check worth doing before you cancel anything. If more than one WoW account sits under your Battle.net login, each carries its own subscription and its own charge. Cancelling one leaves the others running, which is the single most common reason someone cancels and gets billed again the following month.

How To Cancel WoW Subscription On Battle.net

1. Sign in on the Battle.net website. Go to the Battle.net account page in a browser and log in with the account the receipts go to, not whichever account happens to be signed in on your machine.
2. Open Account Settings. Click your account name in the top right, then Account Settings.
3. Go to Games & Subscriptions. It is in the left sidebar. This page lists every subscription on the account, which is where a second WoW account would show up.
4. Click Manage next to your WoW account. If you have more than one, check the account name carefully before you go further.
5. Select Cancel Subscription and confirm. Depending on the version of the page you see, this may be worded as turning off recurring billing or auto-renewal. It is the same action.
6. Check the page now shows an expiry date rather than a renewal date. That sentence is the only reliable confirmation that it worked. Screenshot it.
7. Look for the confirmation email. Blizzard sends one to the account address. Keep it. If a charge appears later, it is the fastest evidence you have.

The Battle.net desktop app and the mobile companion app do not manage billing. If you are on a phone, open the Battle.net site in a mobile browser rather than hunting for the setting in the app, because it is not there.

What Cancelling Actually Does: Recurring Billing Versus Game Time

This is the distinction the whole thing turns on, and Blizzard’s own wording moves between the two terms, which is why it confuses people.

Your subscription is the recurring payment arrangement. Cancelling switches that off. Nothing else happens at that moment.

Your game time is the access you have already bought. It sits on the account as a balance of days and runs down whether or not a subscription is attached. Cancelling does not touch it, remove it, or shorten it.

So cancelling on day two of a paid month leaves you 28 days of play and no further charge. There is no advantage to waiting until the end of the cycle, and a real risk in doing so if you forget. Cancel the day you decide.

If I Cancel My WoW Subscription, Can I Still Play?

Yes, until the game time you have paid for runs out. After that, the account stays exactly where it is but you cannot log into the game world.

What survives an expired subscription is worth knowing, because people assume they are losing more than they are. Your characters, gold, items, achievements, mounts, collections and guild membership all remain on the account untouched. Expansions you bought stay bought. Nothing is deleted for inactivity. Resubscribing at any point in the future puts you straight back where you left off, and there is no penalty or re-entry cost beyond the subscription itself.

The exception people forget is anything with a clock attached that keeps running while you are away: a guild bank you were funding, an auction house posting, or a WoW Token you listed. Those do not pause because your subscription lapsed.

Game Time, WoW Tokens And Prepaid Cards: Nothing To Cancel

If you top up your account with game time cards, with a WoW Token bought using in-game gold, or with a one-off block of game time rather than a recurring plan, then you do not have a subscription at all. There is no recurring charge, so there is nothing to switch off. The time you have runs down and access simply stops when it reaches zero.

This matters for two reasons. First, people go looking for a cancel button that does not exist for them and conclude something is broken. Second, and more expensively, someone with prepaid time sometimes closes the whole Battle.net account to “make sure” the charges stop, and forfeits the time they had already paid for. If Games & Subscriptions shows no active subscription, you are already not being billed. Do nothing.

What The Subscription Covers, And What It Costs

One subscription covers retail World of Warcraft, WoW Classic, Classic Era, Hardcore realms and Season of Discovery. You do not pay separately per version. What the subscription does not include is the current expansion, which is bought once as a separate purchase.

Plan	Price	Effective monthly
1 month recurring	$14.99	$14.99
3 months recurring	$41.97	$13.99
6 months recurring	$77.94	$12.99
Current expansion	From $49.99, one off	Not part of the subscription

If cost rather than the game is the reason you are cancelling, the six-month plan is roughly $24 a year cheaper than paying monthly. It also locks you in for six months, which is exactly the wrong trade if you are already thinking about leaving.

Blizzard Refund Policy: The 14-Day And 2-Hour Rules

Blizzard’s published refund policy is more generous than most, and narrower than people hope. The headline is 14 days, with a playtime condition attached to anything you could have played.

What you bought	Refundable?	Condition
Unused WoW subscription time	Yes	Within 14 days, and unused
Games and expansions	Yes	Within 14 days and under two hours played
In-game items, pets, mounts, character services	Yes	Within 14 days, if unused or unclaimed
Battle.net Balance and purchased in-game currency	Yes	Within 14 days, subject to the policy
Anything bought in game with virtual currency	No	Battle passes and cosmetics paid for in currency are excluded
WoW Tokens listed on the Auction House	No	Once listed, it is gone
Purchases from a retailer, console store or mobile platform	Not by Blizzard	That store’s policy applies, not Blizzard’s

Requests go through the Blizzard support site, selecting the relevant game or order. Refunds normally return to the original payment method, though Blizzard may offer Battle.net Balance instead. Take the original payment method unless you are certain you will spend the balance, because balance is not cash and cannot be withdrawn.

The practical point: if you have just been charged for a renewal you did not want, and you have not played on it, cancel and request the refund the same day. Two weeks later the answer is no.

Delete Battle.net Account: A Different And Permanent Action

Closing your Battle.net account is not a stronger version of cancelling a subscription. It is a separate, permanent action with consequences well beyond WoW, and it is where the real money gets lost.

The route is Account Settings, then Close Account under Account Management, then confirm and submit the request. Processing takes a few days. You can also request it through Blizzard support with your name, account email, date of birth and password.

Three things to understand before you do it:

• It is not reversible. Once the account is deleted it cannot be recovered. Characters, items, progress, achievements and purchase history all go with it.
• Blizzard does not refund remaining subscription or game time when an account is closed. Whatever you had left is forfeited. If you have three weeks of paid time on the account, closing it today throws those three weeks away.
• It takes every Blizzard game with it, not just WoW. Diablo, Overwatch, StarCraft, Hearthstone and anything else attached to that Battle.net login goes too, along with any Battle.net Balance sitting on the account.

If your goal is simply to stop paying, cancel the subscription and stop there. The account costs nothing to keep, it holds no card details once the subscription is cancelled, and it means you can come back. Delete the account only if you actually want it gone, and if you do, cancel the subscription first, let the paid time run out, spend or write off any Battle.net Balance, and close it after that.

Cancelling, Closing And Deleting Are Not The Same Thing

Action	What it does	What it does not do
Cancel the subscription	Stops recurring billing, keeps your game time to its expiry date	Does not end access now, and does not refund the current period by itself
Let game time expire	Access to the game world stops, account and characters stay intact	Does not delete anything, and does not stop a subscription that is still active
Uninstall the game or the Battle.net app	Frees disk space	Does nothing whatsoever to the billing
Close the Battle.net account	Permanently deletes the account and every Blizzard game on it	Does not refund remaining subscription time, and cannot be undone

When The Cancellation Does Not Stick

Symptom	Likely cause	What to do
Charged again after cancelling	A second WoW account on the same login, or a subscription billed by a console or third-party store	Open Games & Subscriptions and check every entry, then check the store the receipt came from
No Cancel Subscription option appears	You have prepaid game time rather than a recurring subscription, or the subscription is billed elsewhere	If no active subscription is listed, you are not being billed. Otherwise cancel at the store that charged you
Cannot find the setting in the app	Neither the desktop app nor the mobile companion app manages billing	Use the Battle.net website in a browser, including on a phone
Cancelled but still able to play	Working as intended. Your remaining game time has not expired	Nothing. Check the expiry date on the subscription page and confirm no renewal date is shown
Page shows a renewal date after you cancelled	The cancellation did not save	Repeat it in a different browser with extensions disabled, then contact Blizzard support if it still shows a renewal
Cannot sign in to cancel	Account under a different email, or an authenticator problem	Search your inboxes for the Blizzard receipt to find the right address, then use account recovery
Refund refused	Outside 14 days, over two hours played, or bought through a third party	Check the conditions in the refund table above. For third-party purchases, apply to that store instead

Escalating

Blizzard support handles almost all billing issues on first contact through a ticket on the support site. Include the account email, the charge date and amount, and a screenshot of the cancellation confirmation, and ask for the cancellation to be confirmed in writing. If that fails:

• Dispute the charge with your bank or card issuer, inside their time limit, with the cancellation confirmation attached. Cancel first, because a chargeback does not cancel anything and will normally get the Battle.net account locked
• For a console or third-party purchase, escalate with that store, which holds the subscription and the refund decision
• File a report with the Federal Trade Commission at reportfraud.ftc.gov if a cancellation is being obstructed
• Complain to your state Attorney General’s consumer protection office. California residents can cite the state automatic renewal law, which requires online cancellation for anything signed up for online

Frequently Asked Questions

How Do I Cancel My WoW Subscription?

Sign in on the Battle.net website, open Account Settings, go to Games & Subscriptions, click Manage next to your WoW account and select Cancel Subscription. The page should then show an expiry date rather than a renewal date. The desktop and mobile apps cannot do this, so use a browser.

If I Cancel My WoW Subscription, Can I Still Play?

Yes, until your paid game time expires. Cancelling only switches off the recurring charge. After the time runs out you cannot enter the game world, but your characters, items, gold, achievements and expansions all stay on the account indefinitely.

How Do I Cancel A Blizzard Subscription That Is Not WoW?

The same way. Every recurring subscription on the account is listed under Games & Subscriptions in Battle.net Account Settings, each with its own Manage and cancel option. Cancelling one does not affect the others.

Will I Lose My Characters If I Cancel?

No. Nothing is deleted for an expired subscription or for inactivity. Characters, gold, items, mounts, collections and guild membership stay exactly as you left them, and resubscribing restores access immediately.

Can I Get A Blizzard Refund On My Subscription?

Unused World of Warcraft subscription time is refundable within 14 days under Blizzard’s published refund policy. Games and expansions are refundable within 14 days if you have played under two hours. Anything bought in game with virtual currency, and WoW Tokens listed on the Auction House, are not refundable at all.

How Do I Get A Battle.net Refund?

Through the Blizzard support site, selecting the relevant game or order. The refund normally goes back to the original payment method, although Blizzard may offer Battle.net Balance instead. Purchases made through a console store, a mobile platform or a retailer are refunded by that seller, not by Blizzard.

How Do I Delete My Battle.net Account?

Account Settings, then Close Account under Account Management, then confirm and submit. It takes a few days to process and it is permanent. It deletes every Blizzard game on the login, not only WoW, and Blizzard does not refund remaining subscription or game time when an account is closed. Cancel the subscription and let the time run out first.

Is Cancelling The Same As Deleting My Account?

No, and confusing the two is expensive. Cancelling stops the recurring charge and leaves everything else intact. Deleting the account destroys it permanently, takes every other Blizzard game with it, and forfeits any game time you have already paid for.

Do I Have To Cancel If I Use Game Time Or A WoW Token?

No. Prepaid game time and WoW Tokens are one-off purchases, not subscriptions, so no recurring charge exists. The time simply runs out. If Games & Subscriptions shows no active subscription, you are not being billed and there is nothing to do.

Does One Subscription Cover WoW Classic And Hardcore?

Yes. A single subscription covers retail World of Warcraft, WoW Classic, Classic Era, Hardcore realms and Season of Discovery. The current expansion is a separate one-off purchase and is not included.

How Much Is A WoW Subscription In 2026?

$14.99 for one month, $41.97 for three months which works out at $13.99 a month, and $77.94 for six months which works out at $12.99 a month. The current expansion starts at $49.99 and is bought separately.

Can I Resubscribe Later?

Yes, at any time, with no penalty or re-entry cost. Your account is waiting exactly as you left it. This is the reason to cancel rather than close the account if there is any chance you will come back.

The Short Version

Check who is billing you first. If it is Blizzard, sign in on the Battle.net website, go to Account Settings, then Games & Subscriptions, click Manage next to your WoW account and select Cancel Subscription. Confirm the page now shows an expiry date rather than a renewal date, and keep the email. If a console or third-party store took the money, cancel there instead.

Cancel the day you decide, because your game time runs to its expiry either way. If you were charged for a renewal you did not want and have not played on it, request the refund within 14 days. And do not close the Battle.net account to stop the charges, because it is permanent, it deletes every Blizzard game you own, and Blizzard does not refund the game time you leave behind.