Annual prepay, and what happens if you cancel mid-term

Paying annually gets you two things, and the refund rule is published rather than kept in the contract.

What you get

The setup fee is waived. Not reduced.

Twelve months for the price of ten. A sixth off the annual cost.

Both, together. A fee waiver on its own does not move anybody to annual, and the cash-flow benefit is the reason annual prepay exists.

The refund rule

If you cancel mid-term, the unused months are refunded at the monthly rate.

That is worth reading twice, because there is a plausible-looking alternative that is not what happens. Refunding what you paid divided by twelve would refund the discount as though you had earned it: you would keep a sixth off for the months you used and be refunded at the discounted rate for the months you did not.

The rule here is that the discount is earned by staying. Cancel at month seven and the five unused months come back at the monthly price.

What proves it worked

Ask for the figure before you commit to cancelling. Multiply your unused months by the monthly rate for your plan. The two match.

Why this is on a help page and not only in the contract

Because a refund rule discovered at cancellation is a rule that reads as a penalty, whatever it says. This one is arithmetic you can do in advance, and it is on the pricing page as well as here.

The setup fee if you cancel

The waived setup fee is not clawed back. It was waived, not deferred.

Switching from monthly to annual mid-term

You can, at the next renewal. Mid-cycle the two billing bases do not combine cleanly and the arithmetic gets harder to check, which is the wrong direction for anything to do with money.