Why is Roku charging me every month? To be clear, Roku is not charging you every month since you only purchase the Roku player once.
Then you receive access to hundreds of free titles, apps, and features without a monthly subscription or any billing fees.
If you receive bills with your Roku involved, you should know that not everything in Roku is free.
Forgetting to cancel your 7-day trial with an app or subscribing to a streaming service such as Netflix or STARZ, will ultimately start charging you monthly.
To find out what’s the thing charging you every month, continue reading!
Why Does Roku Keep Charging Me?
As we’ve mentioned, Roku is not charging you. However, we’ve found all possible reasons why receipts keep mentioning your Roku account, making you think that Roku is charging you!
Let’s begin with the obvious!
- An Ongoing Subscription
An ongoing subscription that would be billing you every month, can’t be on Roku’s side.
Hence, such a membership can only be related to an app, which requires payment for providing a set of services such as Netflix, Hulu, or even YouTube.
The reason why you believe Roku is charging you could be because the billing information is linked to your Roku account.
Well, this happens when you’ve previously subscripted to a service through your Roku streaming stick or TV, to an external app or service.
Have You Forgotten the Free Trial Period?
As silly as this sounds, we often click on “Start Trail” button and later we simply forget to cancel in a timely manner.
Since starting a trial service always requires your debit card information and upon the free period ending, you’re automatically signed up for a subscription that bills monthly.
- Renting & Buying Movies
By entering the Channel Store on your Roku device, you’re able to download apps, that when you later enter them, you’re eligible to purchase things.
For example, some apps such as Amazon Prime allows renting or buying movies through your Roku, which is a simple purchase.
- In-App Roku Purchases
Many apps in the Roku channel store provide in-app purchases, which don’t necessarily need to be a subscription.
Sometimes it’s a one-time purchase, which reflects on your Roku account and when you look at the receipt, you might be deceived into thinking Roku is charging you.
How to Stop Roku From Charging Me Every Month?
That is why is Roku charging me every month so let’s learn how to stop this!
Notice: The receipt will only mention your Roku account if when subscribing you selected your Roku account as a payment method.
1. Cancel All Roku Subscriptions!
Perhaps the easiest way to prevent any billing from your Roku account would be to cancel all active subscriptions.
As we’ve mentioned only subscriptions with a Roku account as a payment method will appear when checked so let’s learn both ways to know all Roku subscriptions.
Info: The Roku account webpage, shows all Roku Account subscriptions as well as their billing cycle, renewal date, and terms of service for each of them.
How to Check Roku Subscriptions via Roku Website?
Undoubtedly, the better way of checking active subscriptions is from the Roku website:
- Use a computer, laptop, or phone connected to the internet.
- Open a web browser such as Google Chrome or Safari.
- Navigate to “my.roku.com/index” (your Roku Account).
- You will be prompted to sign into your account, so Submit.
- On the next page, locate the Manage Account tab.
- Upon clicking you’ll review “Manage Your Subscriptions”.
- You’ll be redirected to the “My Subscriptions” page next.
- Scroll down to review all activated Roku account subscriptions.
You will now be able to see all subscriptions that are linked to and billed via your Roku account.
On the right side of each channel, app, or service, you’ll see different buttons including renew, unsubscribe or resubscribe so respectively, you should cancel all subscriptions there.
Note: Canceling your subscription will not affect the remaining days you've already paid for!
How to Check Roku Subscriptions from the Roku TV?
The second way of checking Roku subscriptions can happen directly from your Roku TV or stick but comes with a downside.
Well, using this method you can see all subscriptions but not in one place and you would need to go through all channels and services to determine entanglement.
Follow the steps below to check your Roku subscriptions for a Roku device:
- Ensure that your Roku TV or streaming stick is working.
- The next step is to press the “Home” Roku remote button.
- Use the arrows to review the Roku channels lineup.
- Highlight a channel and then press the “Star” remote key.
- From there select “Manage Subscription” from the menu.
- Then, you can locate and select the “Unsubscribe” button.
- If there is no such button, you’re not subscribed to this channel.
Tip: Alternatively, you can go to the channel store, and go to the “Streaming Channels” to select a channel with the “OK” button and see if there’s a subscription.
2. Remove Roku Payment Method
The second method of stopping Roku from charging you every month is a little bit more harsh but it’s guaranteed to be effective.
By unlinking your debit/credit card from your Roku account, you will ultimately cut any possible ways of Roku charging you, by simply stopping transactions.
Here’s how to remove the payment method from your Roku account:
- Go to “my.roku.com” and sign into your Roku Account.
- From there, select “Update” under “Payment Method”.
- Then, select “Remove” at the bottom of the web page.
- Then confirm your action by selecting “Remove” again.
When your payment method has been removed from your Roku account, any future attempts to charge your financial account will fail.
Upon a failed transaction, you will ultimately receive an email message, telling you that the transaction couldn’t be processed.
This will ultimately stop your subscription services, but you will not be charged.
This way at the end of the month, you will have email notifications from ALL services that were not able to pass the transaction, hence weren’t able to bill your financial account.
Tip: Using those notification emails, you can identify the exact services that were charging you!
3. Dispute Unauthorized Roku Charges!
According to Roku’s refund policy, you’re responsible for any purchases made through your Roku account.
Hence, they can’t be refunded, even if you’ve forgotten to cancel your trial and then you were accidentally charged without you intending to pay anything.
If you’re subscribed to a third-party service, not from your Roku account, you can still access the service from your Roku, but Roku is not involved in the billing.
In those cases, you must turn up to the merchant and from there check whether the purchases are disputable or refundable.
- How Do I Dispute a Roku Charge?
If you managed to catch an unauthorized Roku account charge, well, you can report the billing and perhaps receive your money back.
Your situation must be disputable such as children making an intended purchase or your credit/debit card being stolen – something of this caliber.
- To dispute a Roku charge you need to contact Roku Customer Support.
However, keep in mind that Roku has the complete right to deny your dispute, based on if your responsibility is involved.
Well, in cases where you were charged unreasonably, you can expect your money back so feel free to dispute.
Bonus Tip: Keep No Money Available!
A pretty good way to stop absolutely all automatic billing from your financial account is to simply keep no money in the current account.
Most banks nowadays allow all users to create a savings account and transfer the funds there, leaving no funds in the account that apps will try to bill.
Ultimately, you’ll start receiving emails that automatic billing transactions fail to process and you’ll have a clear indication of all services you’re subscribed to.
Then you can simply disable those subscriptions by canceling them, which guarantees that you won’t be charged anymore.
Note: This method will not only prevent Roku purchases but ALL of your subscriptions on this particular payment method.
Quick Recap:
Here we’ve learned exactly why is Roku charging me every month, how to prevent this in three different ways, and how to stop billing in the future.
The conclusion is that Roku cannot charge you every month, instead it’s an app subscription or a one-time purchase.
For more Roku-related guides, check out our blog!
Read Next: Can You Use Roku On A Non Smart TV? – Fool Proof Guide
Finn Wheatley holds a Master’s Degree in Computer Science from UCL, London. He helped small data science consultancy firms, helping large corporations to grow their data capabilities, deploy advanced machine learning-based analytics and troubleshoot tech-related issues. Check out more about him here.