What Happens To Audible Credits If Membership Is Canceled?

One of the most appealing features of Audible Premium Plus is the monthly credit system. With the credits you get every month on a Premium Plus subscription, you can purchase titles of any price that are yours to keep forever, even if you cancel!

But what if you cancel your membership without redeeming all your credits? Do you get to keep them and redeem them later?

If you’d like to find out, keep reading because that’s precisely the topic we’re going to look into today!

Here’s How Your Credits Work when You Cancel:

Audible Premium Plus users get one credit per month which can be redeemed for one Audible title. When a user unsubscribes, they will keep all titles purchased with credits. All credits left unspent when canceling will be forfeited. Credits can be transferred when switching Audible membership plans.

How Long Can you Keep your Credits when Canceling?

When you cancel your Audible Premium Plus membership, you immediately lose all credits you have yet to spend.

There is no grace period because as soon as you make the final click to unsubscribe, your credits are deactivated.

It’s worth pointing out that those credits are something you paid for. They’re not free credits, they’re part of the package deal you buy when you sign up for an Audible Premium Plus membership.

When you subscribe, after all, you’re agreeing to exchange $14.95, each month for access to the Audible library and one credit redeemable for an Audible title.

There’s not much that you can do about this, and technically, you do agree to these terms when you sign up.

Can you Cancel Audible and Keep the Remaining Credits?

As we just covered, no, sadly, you cannot.

There’s definitely an argument to be made that you should be allowed to do just that, but as it stands, Audible has all the power in this dynamic, and they have firmly said “no.”

So, what can you do?

The best way to get maximum value from your subscription before canceling it is to ensure you have spent every last credit on your account.

Audible can and will take your credits away when you cancel, but they will not take away the titles you purchased with credits (more on that in a bit).

That being said, it turns out there is another way you can actually keep your credits.

How to keep Audible Credits

You can keep credits by remaining subscribed to Audible but changing your subscription plan. This can lower your subscription cost considerably without forfeiting your credits.

See, if you switch from an Audible Premium Plus membership plan to an Audible Plus plan, you get to keep any credits you accumulated while you were a Premium Plus member.

So if you no longer want your Premium subscription and you haven’t decided what to redeem your credits for yet, you could opt for the much cheaper Plus membership and still enjoy your credits.

However, be sure to keep track of your credit expiration date, as this will remain fixed even if you change your membership plans.

Additionally, it seems that the rules are slightly different if you’re on an Audible membership through Google Play or an iOS mobile device. In these cases, your credits actually don’t expire, and you can use them after cancellation.

This is only true for these two specific cases, however, and everything we’ve said about losing your credits when you cancel still applies to all other Audible memberships.

Check out our article all about Free Audible Books!

Can you Still Access Purchased Books after Canceling Audible?

Unlike unspent credits, the actual titles you redeem those credits for are yours to keep forever.

So if you spend your credits on audiobooks, then cancel your membership, you’ll still have access to the titles you purchased, just not the rest of the membership benefits you had.

If you have paused or canceled your membership, just log in to your account like you normally would in order to access your library of purchased content.

Most of the options you might have been used to from being a subscribing member may be inaccessible now, but one thing you can always access in your account is your purchased titles.

Can you Have Unused Credits Refunded?

Unfortunately, it seems that users will be unable to receive a refund on unused credits. 

As we mentioned before, these credits are not free, they’re part of a package deal that you’re paying for. And that remains absolutely true. However, a problem arises when trying to calculate the exact worth of each credit.

It is difficult to determine what percentage of the $14.95 users pay every month is the amount that buys the credit, as opposed to the rest of your membership benefits.

Perhaps you may be thinking that one credit equals the one audiobook you can redeem with that credit. Unfortunately, it is not as simple as this. The titles for which credits can be redeemed vary widely in price.

So, as you can see, it would get rather confusing figuring out how much would be owed in a hypothetical refund of credits, and as such, Audible has opted to simply make this impossible.

Should I Pause or Cancel my Subscription?

Great question! The answer to this question depends on exactly what you want to get out of the situation and why you’re considering pausing or canceling in the first place.

It’s definitely worth noting that unlike when you cancel a subscription—at which point all your credits are just gone—pausing a subscription allows you to keep your credits.

When you pause, you will temporarily lose access to membership benefits such as the massive library of on-demand audiobook streaming. You also won’t be billed again until you unpause your membership, at which point you get all those shiny membership benefits back.

However, you do actually keep your credits while your membership is paused and can even spend them during this time.

Of course, you won’t get any new credits during this time. This is because one of the benefits you’re putting on pause are the monthly credits, but any old ones you have saved up are fair game.

Here’s how to pause your subscription plan:

1. Head to the Audible ‘Accounts Details’ page.
2. Click ‘Pause Membership’
3. This allows you to set aside your membership for up to three months. 

Please also read our article on using Audible without a subscription.

Can you Transfer the Remaining Credits to Another Account?

As far as we were able to find, this does not seem to be an option.

The closest thing to being able to do so would be to switch plans from Audible Premium Plus to Audible Plus.

This would allow you to change to a different subscription plan while keeping your credits. However, it would not be a transfer to a new account, just swapping plans on the same account. 

Another way to transfer Audible credits is by gifting a book to someone.

Final Thoughts

With all this information, we have put together a helpful list of situations you might find yourself in and what course of action might be best for you in each one.

• You want but can’t afford your subscription right now, yet will be able to again in the future: In this case, pause your membership; you can unpause when you can afford it again.
• You can’t afford or don’t want your subscription, have unspent credits, and are ready to spend them: In this case, spend all your credits right now and THEN cancel.
• You can’t afford or don’t want your subscription, have unspent credits but aren’t ready to spend them: In this case, pause your membership. Now, you can take your time figuring out what to spend those credits on. Once they’re all spent, cancel.

Take a look at our article about Audible sales and discounts!

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