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Subscriptions don’t know that anyone has died. A streaming plan, a music family plan and a shopping membership will keep renewing on the same card until one of two things happens: someone cancels them, or the payment fails. Three ordinary ones — Netflix Standard, Spotify Family and Amazon Prime — come to about $57 a month, or roughly $684 a year, and nothing about a death certificate stops any of them on its own.
This page is for whoever is dealing with it: an executor, a partner, an adult child. It covers what each major company actually asks for, the order to do things in, and the one decision that costs survivors the most money. It’s not legal advice, and the executor or the estate’s attorney has the final say on anything involving the estate’s money.
Why they keep billing
Each subscription is a standing instruction to charge a card or bank account. The company has no way of knowing the account holder has died unless someone tells it, and most of them only stop when told by the right person, with the right documents.
The bank side stops things too, but bluntly. When a card or account is closed, the next renewal declines and the service eventually lapses. But closing the card first destroys the best list you have of what was being paid for.
Step one: make the list before anything gets closed
Before any card is cancelled, pull 12 months of statements for every card and account the person used. Twelve, not one or two: annual renewals only show up once a year, and they’re the charges most likely to be missed. Our guide to spotting a subscription on a bank statement lists the merchant strings to search for.
Then check the places that hide subscriptions from the statement entirely. A single APPLE.COM/BILL line can cover a dozen app subscriptions, and PayPal, Google Play and Amazon each bundle their own. We cover those four billing systems in how to cancel subscriptions you forgot about, and the ones that survive longest in five subscriptions you’re probably still paying for. If you can get into the person’s phone with their family’s permission, Settings → their name → Subscriptions is the fastest list there is.
Write down, for each one: the service, the amount, monthly or annual, the card it bills, and whether anyone else in the family uses it.
What each company asks for
The processes vary a lot. Some will cancel for anyone who can describe the account; others will only deal with the executor.
| Company | Who can act | What they ask for |
|---|---|---|
| Netflix | Anyone with the details | Account email or phone, and the full payment details on file |
| PayPal | Executor or administrator only | Death certificate, executor documents, photo ID, a W-9 for the estate |
| Apple | Legacy Contact, or one heir with legal documents | Access key and death certificate, or a court order in the US |
| Family or representative, after review | A request through Google’s deceased-user form | |
| Amazon | The account holder’s login, or an authorized agent | Sign-in plus a reply within five days, or an email for agents |
| Spotify | No published process we could find | Contact Spotify support |
Netflix is the simplest. Its help page for a deceased member says that if you can’t get into the account, you gather the account’s email address or phone number and the full payment information currently being used, then contact them. If you can log in, it’s the normal Cancel Membership link.
PayPal is the strictest, and it matters more than it looks, because PayPal is where old automatic payments tend to live. Its US help page says it only takes instructions from the authorized executor or administrator. It asks for a cover sheet naming the account’s primary email, a death certificate, the requestor’s photo ID, legal documents or a will naming the executor, and a W-9 for the estate, sent to deceasedaccounts@paypal.com or by post. Any remaining balance goes out as a check in the deceased person’s name, or by transfer to the linked bank account, and then the account is closed or locked.
Apple works best if the person set up a Legacy Contact while alive. That contact needs both the access key and the death certificate. Apple’s page is explicit that movies, music, books and subscriptions bought with the account are inaccessible to a Legacy Contact, as is everything in iCloud Keychain, including payment details. Without a Legacy Contact, Apple’s page says a US request generally needs a court order naming you as the rightful heir, and only one person can request access.
Google offers three routes on its deceased-user page: close the account, request funds from it, or request data from it. It says it can’t hand over passwords, and that every request is decided after a careful review. If the person set up Google’s Inactive Account Manager, up to 10 chosen contacts get the data they were picked to receive once the account has been inactive for the period the owner set.
Amazon‘s published closure page assumes the account holder is the one closing it: you sign in, confirm, and reply to a message sent to the account’s email or phone within five days. For someone who can’t sign in, the same page offers an email route for “an authorized agent under applicable state law”. Third-party guides describe a dedicated bereavement team; we couldn’t find that on Amazon’s own pages, so we haven’t listed an address. Closing an Amazon account is permanent and closes it on every Amazon site worldwide.
Spotify doesn’t publish a bereavement process that we could find. Its family-plan page says the plan manager is the only person who pays for the plan. It doesn’t say what happens to the other members when the manager’s account closes, so plan as if they lose Premium.
The calculation: what waiting costs
Take an ordinary set of three, priced on 20 October 2026:
- Netflix Standard: $19.99 a month (Netflix’s help centre)
- Spotify Premium Family: $21.99 a month (spotify.com)
- Amazon Prime: about $15 a month (approximate; Amazon’s prices can’t be confirmed at source)
That’s $41.98 + about $15 = about $57 a month, or about $684 a year. Every month it runs unnoticed costs another $57. If it runs six months while the estate is being sorted out, that’s about $342.
To work out your own figure, add up the monthly items from your list, then add each annual renewal that falls within the next 12 months. The annual ones are the expensive surprise: a membership that renews once a year can land in a single charge larger than all the monthly ones put together.
The decision that costs survivors money: keeping the family plan
The most common mistake isn’t forgetting a subscription. It’s keeping one running because someone still uses it.
A partner who was on the deceased’s Spotify Family plan doesn’t need a six-seat plan. Family is $21.99 a month and Individual is $12.99, so keeping the family plan going for one listener costs $9 a month, or $108 a year, for seats nobody uses. If two people are left, Duo at $18.99 saves $3 a month. Survivors should move to a plan in their own name, with their own payment details, and then cancel the old one.
The same logic applies to any plan billing the deceased’s card. If the card is closed, the plan stops anyway, often without warning. Moving to your own account first means nobody loses access in the middle of everything else. Which services allow sharing, and what each seat costs, is covered in which subscriptions let you share with family.
The verdict
Do this: make the 12-month list before closing any card. Cancel the simple ones (Netflix-style, where the details are enough) straight away. Hand the PayPal and Apple steps to the executor, because those companies will only deal with them.
Don’t keep paying to preserve access. If you’re the only person still using a family plan, you shouldn’t keep it. Move to an individual plan in your own name; on Spotify, that saves $108 a year on its own. And don’t buy anything new on the deceased’s accounts while you’re sorting them out, including a plan upgrade, because it’s one more thing someone will have to unwind.
If you’re planning ahead for yourself: set up Apple’s Legacy Contact and Google’s Inactive Account Manager now. Both are built into the account settings, and they are the only routes on this page that don’t need a court order or an executor’s paperwork.
Last verified 20 October 2026. Netflix’s price was read from help.netflix.com and Spotify’s from spotify.com/us/premium that day. Each company’s process was read on its own help pages the same day; Amazon’s was read in a browser, because amazon.com refuses automated requests. The Prime figure is approximate and couldn’t be confirmed on Amazon’s own pages. We couldn’t find a published bereavement process for Spotify or a bereavement address on Amazon’s own pages. Rules for estates vary by state, so check with the executor or the estate’s attorney before acting on anything involving the estate’s money.