What happens to your image credits when you cancel a plan?
People put off cancelling an image subscription for a reason that turns out to be correct: cancelling usually costs you something beyond the plan itself. This page separates what you keep from what disappears, and describes the one arrangement where leaving costs nothing.
What you keep
Images you already generated are yours. They stay in your gallery or your downloads, and any usage rights the service granted you when you made them are unaffected by the plan ending. Download anything you care about before the account goes dormant anyway. Galleries move, accounts get archived, and a local copy costs nothing.
What you lose
The unused part of the current period’s allowance, generally in full. Because the allowance was permission rather than property, cancelling withdraws the permission — there is nothing to hand back. The ability to generate, from the end of the paid period. Most services let you finish the period you already paid for, which is why cancelling immediately after a renewal is worse than cancelling just before one. And, on some services, features around the images rather than the images themselves: private generation, higher resolution, priority queues. Check what your particular plan gates before assuming that only the generation counter is at stake.
Cancelling as a way to manage lumpy demand
Some people manage uneven workloads by subscribing for one month, generating a batch, and cancelling before the next renewal. This works and it is entirely legitimate. Its costs are administrative rather than financial. You have to remember the renewal date. You have to resubscribe, which means the friction lands every time your work does. And reviewers of several services report that cancellation is not always as easy as subscribing — the complaint appears often enough in public reviews to be worth factoring in. If you find yourself doing this more than twice a year, the subscription is not the right shape for your work.
Leaving with nothing to lose
There is a version of this where cancelling is not a decision at all, because there is nothing to cancel. With a bought pack, you own a balance. Walking away is just not buying another pack. The balance you already hold does not expire, so coming back in six months costs nothing and nothing has to be reactivated. That is how Imagepack works: packs of 20, 60 or 150 images, one payment each, no renewal date anywhere in the arrangement. It will not beat a subscription on price per image if you generate every day. It removes the cancellation problem entirely for everyone else.
Frequently asked questions
Do I lose images I already made if I cancel?
No. Generated images and their usage rights stay with you. What ends is the ability to make new ones once the paid period is over.
Do unused credits get refunded on cancellation?
Generally not. The allowance is part of the plan rather than a balance you own, so there is nothing to refund when the plan ends.
Should I cancel right after renewing?
If you have decided to leave, cancel as close to the end of the period as you can manage while still remembering to do it. Most services let you keep generating until the period you paid for runs out.
Is there a way to stop paying without losing the ability to generate?
Buy a pack rather than a plan. A pack has no renewal, so stopping is simply not buying the next one, and the balance you already own stays available.
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