What is Substack's refund policy?

Publisher Refunds

Substack Publishers may issue refunds, at any time, at their discretion as permitted by the functionality of the platform and Stripe, our payment processor.

Publishers who wish to learn more on how to issue refunds can do so here.

Subscriber Refunds

Subscriber refund requests should be made directly to the Publisher of the subscribed publication, who will issue refunds at their discretion. 

Substack will honor the refund request according to (1), (2), (3) of our Refund Policy below as well as other discretionary cases. To request a refund, contact our Support team here.

1. If a refund request is made within 7 days of payment, Substack will issue a refund.

Any requests made beyond 7 days from payment will be at the discretion of the Publisher. 

2. If payment has been made to a dormant publication. 

A dormant publication is a publication which has had at least 6 months of inactivity for the annual subscription tier or at least 1 month of inactivity for the monthly subscription tier (from the date of your payment). Inactivity means that the publication has not published any articles.

3. If there has been a service issue. 

A service issue is an issue occurring at a technical or server level (i.e., a software bug which creates a delay in the receipt of a publisher’s email). A pro-rata refund, based on the delay and/or extent of the service issue, will be provided.

Note: Please note that refunds can take up to 5-10 business days to appear on your credit card statement.

To learn more, please read our Terms of Use.

Refunds for subscriptions made on the Substack iOS app

As part of a pilot program, some readers may be able to pay for subscriptions to select publications directly on the Substack iOS app.

These subscriptions are purchased directly through Apple's App Store and some purchases from the App Store may be eligible for a refund. To request a refund, follow these steps: Request a refund for apps or content that you bought from Apple

Our Support team is unable to accommodate any refund requests for subscriptions purchased via the Substack iOS app.

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