How Long Software Keeps Your Data After You Stop Paying
Twenty products, five categories, one question - and answers ranging from "immediately" to "two years", none of them published anywhere together.
On this page
Every software company answers this question somewhere. None of them answer it anywhere you would look, no two use the same units, and nobody has ever put them side by side.
Here is every deletion deadline this site has verified, from vendor documentation, across five categories.
The table
| Product | Retention after you stop paying | Can you log in meanwhile? |
|---|---|---|
| Google (over quota) | 2 years, with "at least 3 months" notice | Yes |
| Google (inactive account) | 2 years of no activity | n/a |
| Salesforce (paid org) | 120 days, then unrecoverable | No — LOCKED |
| Pipedrive | 6 months after cancellation | Until billing cycle ends |
| Apple iCloud | 180 days for backups after you stop using Backup | Yes |
| Microsoft OneDrive | Frozen at 3 months; 6 months then "might delete" | Read-only |
| HubSpot | Workflows, knowledge bases, sequences: 90 days | Yes — free tier |
| Pipedrive (closed trial) | 60 days retrievable | No |
| Basecamp | Servers 30 days; backups 60 days | No — immediately |
| Salesforce (trial) | HOLD 30 days, then purged | Redirect page only |
| FreshBooks | Inactive 30 days or more may be deleted | Until billing cycle ends |
| Dropbox | No period published; may delete oldest files first | Yes, limited |
| Apple (over-quota data) | Not published | Yes |
| 1Password (frozen) | Not published | Yes — view and export |
| Pipedrive (expired trial) | "Deleted shortly after" | No — restricted |
| Bonsai (delete) | Immediate and irreversible | No |
All quoted from vendor documentation linked below, checked 18–19 October 2026.
Three things the table shows
Consumer services are far more generous than business ones. Google gives two years. Microsoft gives six months. Salesforce gives 120 days without access, Basecamp ends access the same day. The pattern is consistent and it makes commercial sense: consumer products want lapsed users back, enterprise contracts end as negotiations.
Retention and access are different questions, and people conflate them. Salesforce keeps your data for 120 days and locks you out of it. 1Password publishes no retention period and lets you export indefinitely. A long retention window you cannot reach into is worth less than a short one you can.
Four of these publish nothing. Dropbox, Apple, 1Password and anyone relying on "shortly after". That is not generosity — it is an absence of a commitment, and the honest response is to assume the worst plausible reading rather than the best.
The dangerous middle
The deadlines most likely to catch you are not the shortest ones. They are the ones long enough to relax about.
Nobody forgets a deadline that is tomorrow. Ninety days is the perfect length to forget. It is long enough to feel like a non-problem on the day you downgrade and short enough to arrive before you have thought about it again.
HubSpot's 90-day workflow deletion is the clearest example. People read it as reassurance. Ninety days later the automation logic that encoded how their business operates is gone, and there is no version of upgrading that brings it back.
Google's two years is the same trap at a larger scale. Two years is functionally infinite to human memory.
What actually protects you
- Export during the paid period. Every single window in this table is open while you are still a customer. Most are shut or narrowed the moment you are not. This one rule covers every row.
- Put the deadline in a calendar, not in your head, with a reminder at two-thirds of the way through.
- Check where the notifications go. Every policy here depends on an email reaching a human. For a service you have stopped paying for, that email goes to an address you may have stopped reading — sometimes on the very account that is restricted.
- Assume the pessimistic reading of any silence. "Shortly after" is not a number, and neither is an unpublished policy.
- Keep exports outside any vendor's system. A copy stored in the next SaaS product recreates the dependency you just escaped.
The category pages
- Cloud storage — Google, Microsoft, Dropbox and Apple compared.
- CRM — where two of four end account access entirely.
- Project management — where almost nothing is deleted at all.
- Password managers — the widest spread of any category.
- Freelance tools — where the records have to outlive the software.
And for the related question of whether you can still get the data out once the clock is running, see can you still export after you stop paying.
Questions people ask
How long do companies keep your data after you cancel?
There is no standard. Across the twenty-odd products we have documented, the published figures range from immediate loss of access to two years of retention. Most cluster between 30 days and six months, and a significant minority publish nothing at all.
Which software deletes your data fastest?
On access, Basecamp - 37signals states you cannot access your account once you cancel, with content removed from servers after 30 days. On data, FreshBooks names the shortest explicit window we found: accounts inactive for 30 days or more may be deactivated and deleted.
Which keeps it longest?
Google, by a wide margin. Content becomes eligible for deletion only after two years over quota, with at least three months of notice first. Salesforce is the longest among business tools at 120 days, though you cannot log in during that time.
What if a vendor does not publish a deletion deadline?
Treat it as an unanswered question rather than a promise. Apple publishes no deletion deadline for over-quota iCloud data and 1Password publishes none for frozen accounts. An unstated policy cannot be planned around and can be applied on a timing you have no visibility of.
What is the one rule that works everywhere?
Export during the period you have already paid for. Every window in this table opens before the subscription ends and most close at or shortly after it. The paid period is the only time you are guaranteed a fully working account.
Where this information comes from
Product details change often. Each item below links to the primary source we checked, so you can confirm anything that matters to your decision.
- Google One — How your Google storage works (checked 18 October 2026)
- Microsoft — What does it mean when your OneDrive account is frozen? (checked 18 October 2026)
- Dropbox — Exceeding storage space on Dropbox Basic (checked 18 October 2026)
- Salesforce — Access to Organizations with Expired, Hold and Locked Status (checked 19 October 2026)
- HubSpot — Understand the effects of downgrading a paid subscription (checked 19 October 2026)
- Pipedrive — How can I cancel my paid Pipedrive account? (checked 19 October 2026)
- 37signals — Cancellation Policy (checked 19 October 2026)
- FreshBooks — How do I downgrade or cancel my account? (checked 18 October 2026)
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