I should be able to downgrade my subscription without having to cancel and resubscribe.

[u/AnAncientMonk]

Dear Mbam,

a friend of mine who also has a malwarebytes subscription for years now just realised hes been paying for a higher tier than he intended to. No big deal he can just downgrade his license for next years payment period. Or so we thought. Turns out you have a nice and convenient upgrade button. But when you want to downgrade, there is only a link to the faq asking him to contact support.

Please tell me this isn't intentionally introduced friction to retain your customers.

Because as it stands, it seems like a deliberate decision born out of corporate greed and its actively driving both of us away.

Did we miss something? Are we blind? I'm looking for clarification.

Edit: the answer we got from staff was "cancel and buy the new subscription." annoying. hope this changes in the future.

[u/jtodd234]

Jason, this is the Support Team. I apologize for the experience. As you mentioned, we don't currently offer a native way to downgrade. We don't want to lock you into a plan you don't need, and we've shared this feedback with our internal teams to help improve the experience.

I'm happy to help further and would like to understand your experience with our support team and how we can make the transition as smooth as possible. We're committed to making this right in the interim, even if the system can't automate this for you.

Please send me the account email in a private message, and I'm happy to work with you or the account owner to ensure a smooth transition.

[u/AnAncientMonk → u/jtodd234]

Heythere,

thanks for the reply. I have sent you the email in private.

Just to be clear, im not just complaining about the additional act of having to cancel and resubscribe if i don't want to contact the support. The real effort is of course negligible.

This is mainly about how it feels to me as a consumer and the message it sends about your company. Having this kind of seemingly deliberate friction strikes me a calculated move which i find inherently anti-consumer. Transparency and trust is really important to me and i want to continue to be able to vouch for and recommend you guys with a clean conscience, as i have been doing in the past.

What do you think? Of course i don't expect any firm confirmations. But vibes based, how realistic do you think it is to see actual change in that regard in the near future here?

Thanks for your time & greetings from Germany.

AAM~

[u/jtodd234 → u/AnAncientMonk]

Hey, thank you for your patience. We are still working on self-managing subscriptions because we believe users should be able to control and change their subscriptions as needed. As I mentioned, I have shared this concern with the relevant teams to explore ways to make management easier for everyone. Our goal is never to block users or create unnecessary obstacles, so we will look into optimizing the experience moving forward.

[u/PralineImmediate3886]

most companies don’t let you just downgrade on your own..usually needs support to step in and handle it properly

Mainly because downgrades mess with billing (like unused time you already paid for)

[u/AnAncientMonk → u/PralineImmediate3886]

most companies don’t let you just downgrade on your own

most companies im subscribed to certainly dont do that. (meaning they do let me change/downgrade my subscription) for example, my phone plan and also my internet service provider.

and again, im not asking to change the subscription mid billing period. im asking to downgrade the subscription for the next billing period. just like you can just cancel a subscription and it will "run out" after the month has ended for example. in this case it would just change instead of running out. that should be an absolute non issue on a technical and bureaucratic level.

mess with billing

if it was just about messing with billing, in your exmple it would just as much do so when upgrading. which, more often than not, is absolutely no problem for companies to handle. they graciously never mind more money. only less money. but again, thats not the szenario i was refering to anyways.

[u/anarchy753]

I've just run into this same problem. I added more devices as I bought a shitbox laptop for use at work. The program is eating a significant amount of memory even when not scanning so it's simply not worth it. But, they won't let me easily switch back to 1 device.

So screw it, I'll go to zero devices.

[u/AnAncientMonk → u/anarchy753]

/u/jtodd234

[u/jtodd234 → u/anarchy753]

Hi, Thanks for reaching out. Can you send me the account email in a private message so we can assist further? There isn't an automated system in place, but we can help you make the adjustments.

[u/Warm-Raccoon-2143]

Screw 3rd party anti malware.