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The exact steps, what to export before you close the account, refund and data-retention rules, and where switchers land next.
by Alkan Balkaya · Last updated: 2026-07-19To cancel MailerLite, open Account settings, go to Plan and billing, click Cancel subscription, and follow the prompts to confirm. It is self-serve with no support contact needed. Your account downgrades to the Free plan after the current billing cycle ends, and your data stays intact until you delete it.
You have already made the decision, so this guide skips the sales pitch and focuses on doing the exit right. That means exporting the things you cannot easily rebuild, canceling in the correct order, and knowing exactly what MailerLite keeps and for how long.
Every specific claim below about cancellation steps, refunds, and retention is sourced from MailerLite’s own help center and terms. Where a detail is not documented, I say so plainly instead of guessing, because a wrong menu path or an invented refund rule is the last thing you need mid-migration.
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Key Takeaways
Export five things before you cancel: your subscriber list, your segment definitions, your email templates, notes on your automations, and your key reports. On the Free plan your data technically remains, but access to certain features and historical data may be limited, so pull clean copies now while you still have full access.
The most important export is your contacts. MailerLite lets administrators export subscribers directly: open the Subscribers page, select subscribers or select all, optionally use Set columns to choose the fields you want, then click the Actions button and choose an export format, either a CSV file or a CSV for Excel file. The full walkthrough lives in MailerLite’s guide to how to export subscribers, which confirms this is an administrator-only action.
Contacts export cleanly to CSV, but your logic does not. Segments, automation flows, and template designs rarely come out as tidy files, so capture them manually before you lose easy access.
| Subscribers | Export as CSV with the fields you rely on selected via Set columns. |
| Segments | Screenshot or write down each segment’s filter rules so you can rebuild them. |
| Templates | Save the HTML or a full screenshot of every campaign design you still use. |
| Automations | Document each trigger, delay, condition, and email in the flow, step by step. |
| Reports | Record baseline open, click, and unsubscribe rates so you can benchmark later. |
One structural detail to plan around: on the Free plan, custom domains are removed. MailerLite’s cancellation help notes that custom domains must be disconnected before cancellation can complete, so if you authenticate sending on your own domain, handle that step and update DNS on the platform you move to.
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Canceling MailerLite is self-serve and takes a few clicks. Go to Account settings, navigate to Plan and billing, click Cancel subscription, and follow the prompts to confirm. No support contact is required. These steps come straight from MailerLite’s guide to how to cancel your subscription, which is the page to check if the interface has changed since this was written.
A subtle but important point: canceling your paid subscription is not the same as deleting your account. Canceling stops future charges and drops you to Free. Deleting removes the account entirely, which is a separate action covered further down. Decide which one you actually want before you click.
After you cancel, your account automatically downgrades to the Free plan once the current billing cycle ends, and you are not charged again. You keep access through the end of the period you already paid for, then you land on Free with your data still in place.
On the Free plan, all your data including subscribers, campaigns, and reports remains intact in the account, although access to certain features or historical data may be limited. In practice, that is why the export step matters: you are not losing the data, but you may lose convenient access to some of it.
Reactivation is straightforward if you change your mind. You can upgrade your plan again at any time to regain access to premium features, and your data is still available. So a downgrade to Free is reversible in a way that permanent deletion is not.
Refunds from MailerLite are narrow. Under the terms, MailerLite is required to provide a refund only if it terminates Services without cause before the end of a year you have already paid for. Outside of that, refunds are limited, so do not count on recovering the unused portion of a paid plan.
Specifically, MailerLite’s terms state there are no refunds for unused or partially used plans, forgotten cancellations, wrong plan selections, canceling immediately after being charged, or accounts suspended for policy violations. Any discretionary refund is limited to 30 days from the last transaction date. You can read the exact language in MailerLite’s terms of service before you decide when to cancel.
The practical takeaway: timing matters more than pleading your case. Because canceling downgrades you at the end of the current cycle rather than issuing a prorated refund, the cleanest move is to cancel when you no longer need the paid features, then ride out the period you already paid for.
Deleting your account is separate from canceling your subscription, and only administrators can do it. To permanently delete, go to Account settings, open the Company profile tab, scroll to the Danger zone, click Delete account, then type DELETE MY ACCOUNT and confirm. MailerLite documents this in its guide to how to delete your account.
There is a safety net. MailerLite gives a 25-day grace period to cancel an account deletion request. If you change your mind within that window, go back to Account settings, Company profile, Danger zone, and choose Cancel request. That grace period is a good reason to make sure every export is finished before you trigger deletion.
Beyond the 25-day grace window, the precise data-retention timeline for permanently deleted accounts is not something I will state as fact, because MailerLite does not document an exact figure I can verify. If that detail matters for a compliance requirement, the official help center is the place to confirm the current policy.
Pick your next platform based on what pushed you out. If you left over pricing, weigh transparent per-tier pricing against volume-based models. If you left over support, prioritize a vendor with real humans and hands-on migration help so your exported lists and rebuilt automations do not stall for days.
Mailsoftly is built for exactly this handoff. You get free hands-on migration, human support that answers, and clear plans you can compare on the Mailsoftly pricing page without decoding volume tiers. The Free plan covers 500 contacts and 2,000 emails per month (as of 2026-04-15), and paid plans start at $39 per month billed annually for 5,000 contacts and 40,000 emails per month on Basic, then $79 per month annual on Business for 15,000 contacts.
Whatever you choose, import the CSV you exported earlier, rebuild segments from the filter rules you documented, and re-create automations from your notes. That is the whole reason the export checklist came first: your new home only needs a clean list and your logic written down.
For the broader picture on this topic, see our complete Email Platform Comparisons guide, which covers strategy, fundamentals, and advanced playbooks.
At the end of the billing cycle you already paid for. You keep full access until then, and afterward the account moves to the Free plan with your data intact, under limits including 250 active subscribers, 2,500 emails per month, and up to 3 automations. You can upgrade again at any time to regain premium features, with your data still available.
Usually no. MailerLite’s terms require a refund only if it terminates Services without cause before the end of a year you paid for. There are no refunds for unused or partially used plans, forgotten cancellations, wrong plan selections, or canceling right after a charge, and any discretionary refund is limited to 30 days from your last transaction.
They stay in the account. After canceling, you downgrade to the Free plan and all data including subscribers, campaigns, and reports remains intact, though access to certain features or historical data may be limited. Contacts are only removed if you separately delete the account. Export your subscriber CSV before you cancel anyway.
MailerLite does not document an official pause or account-hold feature. The closest documented option is canceling your subscription, which downgrades the account to the Free plan while keeping your data intact, so you can upgrade again later. For the current options, check MailerLite’s help center directly.
No. Canceling stops future charges and moves you to the Free plan with your data preserved. Deleting is a separate administrator-only action in Account settings under Company profile, Danger zone, and it removes the account, with a 25-day grace period to reverse the request.
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