Pausing, downgrading, or closing your Ecwid store
If you’ve decided to stop using your Ecwid store for some time or forever (sorry to hear that!), you can do it any time. You can temporarily put your store on hold (for example, if you have a seasonal business), switch your account to the Free plan, or delete your account completely.
| You want to... | Description | Action |
| Pause store | You will still be able to access your Ecwid admin and set up your store, but customers won’t be able to place orders. | Switch to the special Suspension plan at $5 a month. |
| Cancel subscription | Stops your paid subscription. All settings remain and will be restored once you go back to the paid plan. | Switch to the Free plan. |
| Delete account completely | Storefront will be deleted forever: all of your store data will be erased and you won’t be able to access your Ecwid admin. | Unsubscribe from all paid apps from the App Market, downgrade to the Free plan, close your account. |
Subscription charges are non-refundable. For more information, see Ecwid’s terms of service.
Pausing your Ecwid store
If you have a seasonal business, you can put your Ecwid store on hold during the off-season. For that purpose, we offer the Suspension plan for $5 a month. You can also use this plan if you need to work on your store and prevent customers from placing orders in the storefront.
On the Suspension plan, you can access your Ecwid admin, view and edit all your settings and the catalog, but your checkout is disabled. This means that customers can view your products and browse the store, but they can’t place orders.
| Suspension plan | |
| Price | $5/month |
| Number of products | Unlimited |
| Features | All the features of the Business plan are available on the Suspension plan |
| Control Panel | Available |
| Storefront | Open |
| Checkout | Disabled |
To switch to the Suspension plan, please send us a request at billing@ecwid.com. We’ll make the switch for you and email you further details. To unsuspend your store later, please contact our team again.
Closing storefront for maintenance
If you don’t want customers to browse your storefront while your store is on the Suspension plan, you can also close the storefront. Customers will see “The store is closed for maintenance” message when they open your store address and won’t be able to browse the store.
To close the storefront:
- From your Ecwid admin, go to Settings → General → Store profile.
- Click Close Storefront for Maintenance.
- (Optional) Change the default message (“The store is closed for maintenance”) and add your custom text. You can specify the reason for the closure and tell when you’ll be back online.
Your storefront will be closed. When customers open your store link, they will either see the “The store is closed for maintenance” message or your custom message if you added one. Once you are ready to go online, open your storefront from the Ecwid admin, in Settings → General → Store profile.
Downgrading your Ecwid account to the Free plan
If you don’t want to prolong your Ecwid paid subscription, you can cancel it by switching to the Free plan at any time. After the switch, features of your previous paid plan will become unavailable and you will not be able to add more than 5 products as the Free plan has a limit.
To cancel your paid Ecwid subscription:
- From your Ecwid admin, go to Products.
- Delete all but 5 products (including demo and disabled products). The Free plan allows only 5 products, so ensure that you comply with this limit to complete the downgrade. When you delete a product, it's permanently removed from Ecwid. Deleted products can't be restored. You can also delete products in bulk. Learn more about deleting products.
- Then go to My Profile → Billing and Plans.
- Click Switch under the Free plan.
- Select the reason why you decided to leave. You can also leave your comments and suggestions about improving Ecwid.
- Click Switch to Free.
Your Ecwid account will be switched to the Free plan immediately. Your payment method will be removed from your Ecwid account and there will be no further charges.
- On your mobile, go to the App Store app → Account → Manage subscriptions.
- Find the Ecwid Ecommerce app in the list and click on it.
- Click Cancel subscription.
- Confirm the cancellation.
If you purchase a paid plan and then downgrade to a Free plan, you will continue to have access to all the features associated with your paid plan until the end of your current billing period. When the billing period ends, you will be automatically downgraded to the Free plan and lose access to the paid plan features. Since the mobile app is not available on the Free plan, access your Ecwid admin from the desktop or in a mobile browser at this link: https://my.ecwid.com.
- In your Ecwid mobile app, go to Store → Billing and Plans.
- In the Renew Your Plan Today section, click Switch under the Free plan.
- For those who see the warning: ‘Your products exceed the Free plan limit’, tap the Products tab and delete all but 5 products (including demo and disabled products). The Free plan allows only 5 products, so make sure that you comply with this limit to complete the downgrade. When you delete a product, it's permanently removed from Ecwid. Deleted products can't be restored.
- Select the reason why you decided to leave. You can also leave your comments and suggestions about improving Ecwid.
- Click Switch to Free
Your Ecwid account will be switched to the Free plan immediately, and there will be no further charges. Since the mobile app is not available on the Free plan, access your Ecwid admin from the desktop or in a mobile browser at this link: https://my.ecwid.com.
Once your downgrade takes effect, your store reverts to the default settings of the Free plan. See plans and features breakdown. You can use the account on the Free plan as long as you wish.
What to keep in mind
When moving from a paid plan to the Free plan, keep the following in mind:
| What happens | |
| Apps | You won't be able to install or use any additional third-party or custom apps. If you have installed apps they will no longer operate. |
| Feature availability |
Staff accounts will be deactivated. |
| Credits | Subscription charges are non-refundable. For more information, see Ecwid’s terms of service. → |
Deleting your Ecwid account
If you decide to stop running your online store, you can delete the account at any time from your Ecwid admin. All of your store data will be erased and you won’t be able to access your Ecwid admin anymore after that.
Before you close your store, consider the following:
- If you have any third-party apps that have your payment information outside of Ecwid, then cancel your service with those apps to avoid being billed externally after you close your store.
- If you sell gift cards, then you might need to resolve outstanding cards.
- If you have a custom domain that you bought through a third party, then make sure to turn off auto-renewal on your registrar's website to avoid unexpected charges.
To delete your Ecwid account:
- If you are using a paid plan, downgrade the account to the Free plan first.
- When you are on a Free plan, go to My Profile → Profile in your Ecwid admin.
- Click Close my account. This button appears only when you are on the Free plan.
- Confirm that you want to close the account.
- In your Ecwid mobile app, go to Store → Settings.
- Scroll down and tap delete your account.
If you're on the Free plan, tap Profile and proceed to step 4. - Tap Switch to Free and downgrade to the Free plan.
- Tap Go to Profile → Close my account and confirm account deletion.
- If you are on a paid plan, please downgrade to the Free plan first.
- Sign in to your Ecwid account from the desktop or mobile browser at this link: https://my.ecwid.com.
- Go to My Profile → Profile in your Ecwid admin, then click Close my account. This button appears only when you are on the Free plan.
- Confirm that you want to close the account.
After that, you will be logged out of the Ecwid admin and your store data will be deleted.
If there is anything we can do to help you keep using the store, contact us. We’ll do our best to find a solution or a workaround for you.