Leanpub's author subscriptions are great, but some of the payment upgrade, downgrade and cancellation processes definitely need to be improved!
While we're aware of the areas we should improve, we want you to know exactly what currently happens...
Currently, here's what we do when you subscribe to a paid author plan:
When you subscribe to a paid plan (Standard or Pro) we charge you right away.
When you upgrade or downgrade to a different paid plan, we charge the full monthly amount of the new plan right away and cancel the old subscription. We do not refund the most recent payment from the other subscription, so switching plans is costly for the month you do it. Ideally we would do a pro-rated refund here; we just have not done it yet. If you want a partial refund when upgrading or downgrading, please email us the details to hello@leanpub.com. (Currently, to get your money's worth, you should wait to upgrade or downgrade until the day before your subscription renews.)
When you downgrade from a paid monthly plan to a free monthly plan, we immediately cancel the current paid plan. Currently, to get your money's worth, you should wait to downgrade to a free plan until the day before your subscription renews. We currently do not keep the Standard or Pro plan active until the monthly subscription anniversary date, although in future we should obviously do this...
We are nicer people than the above processes would indicate!
If you are unhappy about any of the above, please email us at hello@leanpub.com and tell us what happened, and we'll happily refund you for part or all of a month subscription if you are downgrading, etc...