Recurring billing question

I understand recurring billing on monthly accounts of course, but would have no interest in that.  Here I would only be interested in a one year Platinum or, more likely, Diamond.

I am NOT a fan of recurring billing on one year accounts or memberships and would like to know how cancellations are handled here.

The best sites, IMO, do not use recurring billing on one year memberships, but post your expiration date so that it is seen after each login.  If the site gives value, the renewal rate will be high and fast, and I renew about as fast it expires on sites that I still want to pay for a year later.

The next tier, the most common, allow the user to cancel the membership, but still allows full use of paid services and features through the end of the paid term.  This is what I always opt for when taking on one year memberships.  I cancel after a couple of weeks, use the service for the year, and then I decide whether to renew when my paid term expires.  If so, then the service is restored as if it never expired.

The bottom tier of websites closes the account and access immediately upon cancellation of the membership.

What is the policy of chess.com?  With the new membership levels settled, I am ready to choose and join.   However, shortly after I will cancel the membership so that it is not another item to be unnecessarily calendared.  Policy?  Problem or potential problems?  If I can't cancel and then renew by my own choice after expiration, and without a loss of stats, ratings and such - I would be a lot less interested.

we do auto-renew subscriptions since that is the most convenient choice for most subscribers (we have a very very low churn rate).

that said, you can, at any time, cancel your subscription. all that does is cancel the renewal - your account will remain as is until the end of your original subscription date. after that it will revert to a basic account, but nothing detrimental or bad will happen to your data except for your chess.com messages which then become subject to free member regulations (delete messages older than 90 days i believe).

so, while you might not want with the auto-renewal, you can easily cancel it with no penalty :)

Thanks for the clear answer.  An IT professional, I subscribe to a LOT of services.  Some bill monthly and I keep a master list.  Others bill yearly, and although I could also use a master list and calendar those accounts; what a PITA.  Many I renew year after year.   Others are set up for myself or for clients, serve there purpose, and then are no longer needed.  I have many such situations.  Though industry 'standard' I just despise auto-renewal on yearly accounts.   (I would argue that auto-renew on account terms of that length is mostly convenient for the merchant, excepting the kickout rate of expired CCs.  Continuing users will renew pretty quickly.)

Not surprised that your churn rate is very low.  You are doing some very interesting things here and pushing limits in areas that no other site will even dip a toe into.

but nothing detrimental or bad will happen to your data

Big, big plus.   Glad to see that confirmed.  Would definitely not like to decide to renew and find out there was a data dump in interim period.  I believe we have a deal.  Am now using your Chess Mentor test trial to determine what level to subscribe for.  Will be very glad to get rid of the ads by subscription rather than by script as well.

awesome. thank you for the feedback!