Cancellation friction, in aggregate

Distribution

How the 1,267-strong index grades out

Most companies land at B/C on documented transparency. A grades are rare (a clear, self-serve, well-disclosed exit); F grades mark phone-only or undisclosed terms. Documented-Policy tier — behaviour audit pending.

Easy in, hard out

The asymmetry: joining vs leaving

Signing up is almost always one online click. Leaving isn't: 89 companies (7%) offer no online cancellation at all, and 33% make a phone call one of the only ways out. That gap — easy in, hard out — is the core of the index.

Where it breaks

The weakest part of the cancel journey

Averaged across the whole index, self-serve cancel paths are the weakest dimension (64.1/100) — companies disclose that you can cancel more clearly than they give you a button to do it. Weighted: cancel-path 30, channels 20, notice 15, refund 15, findability 20.

By industry

Hardest and easiest industries to leave

Mean documented score per industry (≥8 companies), hardest at top. The pattern is consistent with the thesis: contract/phone-gated categories (insurance, telecom, gyms) trail self-serve software/streaming. Category mix matters — see the jurisdiction caveat below.

Transparency

Which official policy pages are cited

Every record cites a cancellation page; far fewer surface a dedicated refund, terms, or privacy page. Low coverage means “not published or not yet recorded,” not a definitive negative — these links never affect the score.

Pause instead of cancel

Where you can freeze rather than quit

A pause option can be genuine flexibility — or a retention nudge that keeps you subscribed. Shown per industry (≥8 companies); informational, not scored.

By jurisdiction

Average score by market (read with care)

Directional only — heavily category-confounded. A market's average reflects which kinds of companies we’ve indexed there as much as its law. The rigorous law-effect comparison needs same-category pairs (e.g. German vs US gyms, where Germany’s mandated cancel button moves the score within the same category). Treat this as a coverage map, not a league table.

Freshness

How current the index is

100% of the index was checked within the last 30 days. Freshness is measured against the most recent verification date; this view surfaces decay as records age between re-checks (the weekly snapshot + planned auto-freshness engine keep it current).

Evolution

How the index is changing over time

Tracking began 2026-06-10 (1 snapshot so far). Every weekly snapshot records the full metric set — grades, dimension means, asymmetry, coverage, pause, and per-industry & per-jurisdiction averages — to data/snapshots/metrics.ndjson and the public trends API. The first evolution line chart appears at the next snapshot. Baseline: mean score 68.6 · 17 A-grades · 6% with no online cancel.

The transparency floor

Companies with no published cancellation page

• Nessie (nessielabs.com) · AI tools · US · checked 2026-06-12
• PlugMotors (plugmotors.com) · Automotive · FR · checked 2026-06-11
• Unosend (unosend.co) · Software / SaaS · US · checked 2026-06-13

A clear, self-serve cancellation page should be table stakes. These 3 companies we checked publish no findable cancellation page at all — so there is nothing to grade. This is the absence of a policy, not an F (an F is a poor documented policy). We name them to push the standard forward, and we will score each one the day it publishes a real cancellation page. Listed a company in error? Show us the page and we'll grade it. Machine-readable at /api/v1/no-policy.json.