Understanding Webinars monthly subscription cancellation and pause
Zoom Webinars account owners and admin can pause or cancel single Zoom Webinars monthly subscription plan for Online accounts.
- Pausing a subscription becomes an available alternative when admins try to cancel a plan. This temporarily suspends a subscription for a set duration while still providing view access to existing webinars assets.
- Cancellation triggers a notification to either pause the subscription or continue the cancellation process. Continuing sets the plan to a pending cancellation status until the end of the billing cycle, after which the plan is cancelled and enters a 30-day grace period before user data becomes permanently deleted.
Understanding what happens to the webinar capabilities, webinar recordings, and other assets for each option helps admins choose what is needed for the account.
Note: The cancellation and pause experiences in this article only apply to single Zoom Webinars monthly subscription plans for Online accounts.
How pausing subscriptions work
When you
cancel a subscription, you'll see a message about an alternative to pause the subscription for 1, 2, or 3 months. Pausing a subscription temporarily suspends the Zoom Webinars license at the end of its current billing cycle. This is an alternative to cancellation if there's a plan to resume using Zoom Webinars in the future.
During the pause interval
While your subscription is paused, you can view all Zoom Webinars and assets. The following table summarizes how your assets can be accessed.
| Feature or asset | Access |
|---|
| Create, start, edit, or upload webinars | disabled |
| Attendee registration links | disabled |
| Webinar start button (Zoom desktop app) | disabled |
| View recordings, whiteboards, and summaries from previous webinars | enabled |
| Share, download, or edit recordings, whiteboards, and summaries from previous webinars | disabled |
| View reports from previous webinars that can be viewed without downloading | enabled |
| Download reports from previous webinars that can be viewed without downloading | disabled |
| Download reports from previous webinars that can't be viewed unless downloaded | enabled |
A pause status indicator will appear in the Zoom Webinars interface. You can click the link in the status indicator to go to billing management and manually resume your subscription.
How unpausing subscriptions work
While your subscription is paused, you can unpause and resume your subscription from the
billing management portal. The Zoom Webinars portal page also has a banner that provides an entry point to the billing management portal for unpausing your subscription. When you unpause your subscription, it immediately reverts to the paid experience, which includes charges based on your billing cycle.
Note: For non-admin users, the Zoom Webinars portal page has a banner that reminds them to reach out to the account admin any time they want to unpause their subscription.
After unpausing subscription
Once you unpause your subscription, you resume paid experience with full access to all your Zoom Webinars and assets.
| Feature or asset | Access |
|---|
| Create, start, edit, or upload webinars | enabled |
| Attendee registration links | enabled |
| Webinar start button (Zoom desktop app) | enabled |
| View recordings, whiteboards, and summaries from previous webinars | enabled |
| Share, download, or edit recordings, whiteboards, and summaries from previous webinars | enabled |
| View reports from previous webinars | enabled |
| Download reports from previous webinars | enabled |
How canceling subscriptions work
Canceling your Zoom Webinars license starts a series of lifecycle stages that affect your access to webinar assets. Before canceling, make sure you've backed up any recordings, whiteboards, reports, or summaries you want to keep.
During the initial cancellation
When you cancel a subscription, in-product messages begin showing up with the following reminder, which persist during the entire cancellation experience (pending cancellation period, post-cancellation, grace period, and post-grace period):
- Information on what happens to your webinar assets when the cancellation takes effect, with an entry point option to either keep the plan or continue cancellation
- Information on the alternative to pause the plan for 1, 2, or 3 months, with an entry point option to set the pause duration and continue with pausing instead of canceling
During the pending cancellation status
If you choose to cancel, the subscription enters a Pending Cancellation status until the end of your billing cycle. During this period:
- You retain full paid access to Zoom Webinars and all your assets, including recordings, whiteboards, summaries, and reports
- All webinar asset pages continue to have full capabilities
- You can reactivate the Webinars plan to continue user product and access to the previous webinars' data
During the 30-day grace period
Once your billing cycle ends and the license is canceled, a 30-day grace period begins. During this period:
- The Zoom Webinars product page displays the default unlicensed experience and offers the option to repurchase the plan
- Existing webinar assets, including recordings, whiteboards, reports (usage reports, polls, and surveys), and summaries, can't be accessed and are grayed out on their respective product pages. Hovering over a grayed-out asset displays a tooltip explaining why it's disabled and how to retrieve it.
- To access your assets during the grace period, contact Zoom Customer Support. Support can provide temporary product access so you can retrieve your data.
- Repurchasing a Zoom Webinars license during the 30-day grace period restores access to all existing assets.
After the 30-day grace period
If the license remains canceled after the 30-day grace period:
- All webinar assets, including webinars generated, recordings, whiteboards, summaries, and reports, are permanently deleted.
- Repurchasing a Zoom Webinars license after this point will not restore previously deleted assets.