Closing Your Kapsule Account

Closing an account is the end of a sequence, not a single button: services get cancelled, domains get moved or released, data gets exported, and only then does the account itself get closed.

Work through this page in order. Each step is reversible until the one after it, and doing them out of order is how people lose a domain name they meant to keep.

Step 1: Export Everything You Want to Keep

Nothing on this list can be recreated after the fact, and every item is quicker to do now than to ask for later.

• Website files and databases. Take a fresh backup and download it. Taking a Backup covers the process, and Restoring From a Backup shows what the archive contains so you can check you have what you need.
• Email. Mail lives on the mail platform, not in your website backup. Connect each mailbox in a desktop client over IMAP and let it download in full, or use your client's export or archive function. See IMAP vs POP3.
• Invoices and receipts. Download the PDF for every invoice you need for tax purposes from the Billing page. See Reading Your Invoice.
• DNS records. If your domain is going elsewhere, screenshot or copy your full record set first. Rebuilding a forgotten TXT record after a mail outage is a bad afternoon.
• SSH keys, API keys, and integration settings. Note anything pointing at Kapsule so you know what to repoint.

Step 2: Deal With Your Domains

Domains are the part people get wrong, because a domain is not a subscription. It is a registration with a fixed expiry date, and it is the one asset that does not simply stop when you leave.

You have three options:

• Transfer it to another registrar. Do this before anything else, because a transfer takes days, not minutes, and needs your domain to be unlocked with a valid authorisation code. See Transferring a Domain Away From Kapsule.
• Let it expire. If you genuinely do not want the name any more, turn auto-renew off and let the registry take it back at expiry.
• Keep it here. Nothing forces you to move a domain just because you are cancelling hosting.

Step 3: Cancel Your Subscriptions

Cancel each subscription individually from the Billing page rather than assuming account closure will do it for you. Cancelling a Subscription walks through it, and Renewals and Auto-Renew explains when the last charge falls.

If you are within a refund window, request the refund on the order before cancelling, because the refund and the cancellation are handled together. Refunds and What Is Refundable explains which items qualify and which do not.

Check the Billing page shows nothing active before moving on. A subscription still running is a subscription still billing.

Step 4: Remove Team Members

If other people have access, remove them from Settings, then Team. This is not strictly required, but it means nobody else can start something new on the account while you are winding it down. See Inviting Team Members and Setting Roles.

While you are there, go to Settings, then Security, and revoke any API keys. Keys keep working after their creator has left the team, so they need revoking explicitly. See API Keys and Developer Access.

Step 5: Close the Account

Account removal sits at the bottom of Settings, then Profile, in a section called Account removal.

Closure is a request followed by a confirmation, not a single button. Four gates protect it:

1. Owner only. Anyone else sees "Account removal is owner-only" and is told to ask the Owner. If you are not the Owner and the Owner has left, contact support rather than trying to work around it.
2. Nothing outstanding. The panel refuses to start a closure while you still have an active subscription, an unpaid invoice, or a domain registered here, and tells you which one is in the way with a link to fix it. This is deliberate: closing over the top of a live domain is how people lose a name they meant to keep.
3. A typed confirmation. You must type the exact phrase delete my account before the button becomes active.
4. Two-factor confirmation. If two-factor authentication is on, you are asked for a current six-digit code before the request goes through.

We then email a one-time code to your billing address. Entering that code is what starts the clock. Until you do, nothing has been scheduled and nothing has been removed. If you never enter it, the request simply expires.

If the panel reports that the closure did not complete, do not retry repeatedly. Open a support ticket and ask for the account to be closed. Quote your Support Key from Settings, then Account, so the request can be matched to your account immediately.

What Happens to Your Data

Once you enter the confirmation code, the account enters a 30-day grace period. That is the single retention window: the panel, the assistant, this help centre and the emails all state the same 30 days.

During the 30 days. Nothing is removed. The panel shows the exact date your data will be deleted and a Cancel the closure button. Cancelling puts everything back exactly as it was; there is nothing to restore because nothing was taken. Use this window to finish anything from Step 1 you did not get to.

After the 30 days. A scheduled job permanently removes your personal information: your name, email address, phone number, billing address, saved contacts, sign-in credentials and sessions, the contents of your support conversations, and your assistant history. This step cannot be undone and support cannot reverse it.

What is kept, and why. Invoices, orders and payment records stay. New Zealand law requires business and tax records to be held for seven years, and that obligation does not end when the customer relationship does. Those records are no longer linked to your contact details and nobody can sign in to reach them, but they are not deleted at the 30-day mark and we will not delete them on request while the seven-year obligation runs.

You do not need to ask support to confirm any of this in writing. You will get a closure confirmation email when the grace period starts, stating the exact deletion date, and a final email once your data has been removed.

If You Only Want to Pause

Closing is rarely the right answer to a temporary problem.

• Too expensive? Move down a plan instead. Proration and Plan Changes explains what happens to the money when you switch.
• Project finished but you might return? Cancel the hosting subscription and keep the domain. A domain costs a fraction of a hosting plan and keeps the name yours.
• Not using it right now? Take a full backup, download it, then cancel. Redeploying later from your own archive is straightforward.
• Something is broken? Open a support ticket first. Most closures that start as frustration are a fixable configuration problem.

Troubleshooting

The Delete button is greyed out. The confirmation phrase must match exactly, in lower case, with no trailing space.

I am told account removal is owner-only. Only the account Owner can do it. If ownership needs to move, contact support.

I do not have my two-factor device. Recover access first. See Lost Your Two-Factor Device.

I closed the account but I am still being charged. Subscriptions and account closure are separate records. Check the Billing page, cancel anything still active, and contact support with the invoice number if a charge you did not expect has already been taken.

My site went down before I finished exporting. Stop and contact support before doing anything else.