Ultimate Guitar Reviews 

I started a free trial with Ultimate Guitar and cancelled it on the very same day, believing this would completely stop the trial from converting into a paid subscription. The interface gave every impression that the cancellation was successful.

Only later did I discover that the system had not cancelled the trial itself, but merely disabled auto-renewal for the following year. This is extremely unclear, and in my experience, the cancellation flow does not make a meaningful distinction between ending a trial and turning off future renewals.

Because of that design, my trial converted into a full 1-year subscription without any explicit confirmation or clear warning.

I contacted support and repeatedly explained that I cancelled on day one — well within the trial period. The responses I received were scripted, did not address the actual issue, and simply repeated “you did not cancel before the end of the free trial,” even though the problem is precisely that the system makes this hard to understand.

After reading many similar complaints on Trustpilot, it seems this is a recurring issue and not an isolated case. The overall pattern suggests that the trial cancellation process is confusing enough that users end up paying for subscriptions they never intended to activate.

So far, Ultimate Guitar refuses a full refund, despite the obvious ambiguity in their cancellation flow and the fact that I acted immediately and in good faith.

I hope this review helps potential customers understand the risks. If the company resolves this properly and issues a refund, I will update this review.

— Tim

I installed ultimate guitar on my phone and wanted to try it for 7 days before committing. I picked the 7 day trial, however I was charged 429 DKK right away for an annual all-comprehensive subscription. I contacted customer services and I asked for a refund and my request got declined.

Don’t join ultimate guitar.
Even after cancelling my subscription by writing they have continued to take a yearly fee.
I have discussed this with other friends who had ultimate guitar and they had the same problem.

BEWARE - this company stole money from me. They advertised a 7-day free trial for their pro feature, and as soon as I activated the trial, they charged me for 1 full year. I've never experienced this with any other company in my life, so I was quite surprised to see the charge on my account.

When I contacte customer service to ask they refund my money and honor their advertised 7-day trial, they told me they cannot do that, and the best they can do is give me a partial refund of about 60% of the total cost, along with 1 month of access to their pro feature.

I'm completely blown away by how unethical this company is. It's quite sad that they feel they have to stoop to lying and stealing from the public in order to keep their company afloat, and they are definitely sacrificing countless possible long-term customers for getting a quick buck out of first time payers.

Cancelled my subscription and a year later they charged me for it again anyway. customer support said they would refund me then later said they couldn't then said they could only give me a % back. Still haven't received anything back almost a year later

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Contacted them again after they replied to my review. They showed me proof that a refund was always possible. But since they waited so long they missed the refund window. Would highly recommend avoiding UG. There are plenty of better sites for tabs and even more for lessons

I wish I'd read these reviews before I subscribed. The exact same thing has happened to me. I opt for the discount, pay the discounted subscription and then a week later Ultimate Guitar deducts a further charge from my credit card for the full value of the subscription.

I'm very disappointed. I had always found UG's non-subscription tools helpful and that's what made be decide to opt for the discounted package. Tell your friends: UG subscription offers are just one big scam. Don't subscribe and certainly don't give them your credit card information.

Purchased via the App Store. Offered a 79% discount. The. Charged full price. Customer support do not respond.

While I have an active one-year subscription (€19.99 valid until 24-04-2026), an additional amount of €22.99 was charged to my PayPal account on 30 October. I disputed this charge, but my claim was rejected. In my opinion, this is outright fraud.
Update:

Mr. Aydar did indeed contact me after my negative review, supposedly to resolve the issue. I was asked all kinds of questions, which I cooperated with. Since I myself cannot see why the money was wrongfully debited, one would assume that when Mr. Aydar’s company collects money, they know what it is for. Instead, they pretend not to know and keep asking the same questions over and over again. This is clearly a deliberate discouragement tactic. Eventually, they stopped responding altogether. After many years, I have now cancelled my active account. The money is not returned!!!

I want nothing more to do with this kind of scammers!! 😡

On their website, the initial "subscription window" mentions a free trial offer. After paying for the yearly subscription. I was dissatisfied and tried cancelling shortly after an hour. I even emailed them letting them know my intention to cancel the subscription. To my utter surprise, my refund request was refused stating the 'yearly subscription' does not have a free trial offer. Although that is stated on another window's 'fine print', it is very misleading. I have filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, and they are awaiting a response from Ultimate Guitar.
Buyer Beware!!! Stay tuned for more information as it unfolds.

As a follow-up, Ultimate Guitar responded to my review and offered to resolve the issue. I sent an email to the address they provided and was surprised to get a response shortly thereafter.

I am happy to announce that the issue has been resolved and I complement them for refunding my money.

While I have mostly enjoyed using Ultimate Guitar I'm giving them 2 stars for how they dealt with a refund request. It can be difficult to keep track up subscriptions and even though I had double checked, I somehow had a double up subscription. The day the second payment came out I emailed to try and get a refund and it turned into many back and forth emails from different people and wording like "according to our terms and services" etc etc.

I cannot ever recommend a service when common sense doesn't prevail. I obviously didn't need two subscriptions. I ended up getting a refund "minus 1 month" for some reason but the amount of effort that took was off putting. I've cancelled my other subscription because of this.

Spoke to customer service, somehow picked the wrong package. Altogether 19.99 and another 7.99 per month. Would not let the songs scroll. Asked for a refund so I can make the right service. Told we don't do that. You've lost a customer willing to spend 28.98 a month . Misleading, unhelpful and money grabbing

i'd had a good experience for 3 years - all fine. it was when i tried to cancel my subscription that trouble started.
I canceled my subscription about a month before yearly renewal but they still renewed my sub and took £68 [ish] from my account.
I contacted customer services and they denied any evidence of my cancellation. Eventually claiming that yes, I'd cancelled but not til the day of the yearly auto-renewal, a few hours after the money had been taken from my account. This was untrue.
They flat refused my requests to check their records for my earlier cancellation - god knows what had happened a few hours after the autorenewal- nothing as far as i know.
They refused again, offering other stuff, like discounts on other products. I kept insisting, another customer services agent took over with the same refusals.
I continued to insist [14 emails dialogue] and eventually I got an email saying my subscription would be refunded. No explanation why, no apology.
I requested an explanation, asked if an error had occurred -no more replies.
dodgy

Sections 3.2 and 4.1 of Ultimate Guitar’s Terms of Service form the billing agreement. They state that I would receive an email notice before renewal. The only message I received was titled “Upcoming Changes to Your Ultimate Guitar Subscription” and appeared to be a marketing email about new features and price changes.

The renewal notice was buried mid-paragraph, with no mention of an impending charge or renewal in the subject line. A reasonable person scanning their inbox would not recognise this as a renewal warning, meaning the charge of AUD 40.99 occurred without informed consent.

As soon as I saw the debit, I contacted Ultimate Guitar to cancel and requested a refund. I have not used UG Pro since renewal. Ultimate Guitar refused a full refund, offering only partial or alternative options.

Under Australian Consumer Law, contract terms and renewal notices must be clear and transparent. Ultimate Guitar’s communication did not meet that standard. I made a formal complaint to PayPal and am awaiting their final response.

Why can I not even get some music without more and more costs
Cancel it

Their customer service is AI driven and they don’t disclose that you’re talking to a robot. Not cool.

Awful customer service!

I had cancelled the subscription in Google Play as didn't use it anymore. It appears they had the subscription held on their website and was set to auto renew yearly at a cost of £99.99. I did not receive an auto-renew reminder, I thought the subscription was ended with Google Play but apparently not. They charged me full price for a service I do not use. I requested a refund and they stated it would be a refund minus 1 month subscription, which equated to 24.99! I feel very ripped off and this feels like basic theft, customers should have a legal right to full refund within cooling off period and they definitely should be reminding customers of upcoming renewals, not put the burden on customers to remember in the hopes they can get away with charging for an unwanted forgotten service. Will never use again, strongly advise others not to use this shady service

Absolute scam my stepdaughter signed up years ago I can’t find out how to cancel it my bank was supposed to have blocked these scammers but again they’ve charged me. Seems about the only way you can stop them is to change your bank.

Too bad I can't give you a negative 4,000. No service, and when you purchase a new I pad, your logo changes, you don't recall the subscription, the history is gone, and you people simply don't care.

The websites built in synth player for tabs is absolutely horrendous sounding. Songsterr's synth sounds much better, and you can also hear the original audio from synced YouTube videos on Songsterr.

Tabs won't load unless hardware acceleration is turned on in. Not a problem on Songsterr.

I find way more inaccurate tabs on UG than on Songsterr. You can easily edit tabs on Songster and download tabs to Guitar Pro file. UG doesn't allow you to do either.

UG is forever trying to sell songbooks at the top of the site. There is always this fake countdown clock telling you that you have so many hours to try it for free. I have the site opened on two different devices and the clock is different, lol.

I pay for both currently, but I won't be renewing UG.

i cancelled my subscription and got charged 100€ a week later, they refuse to do anything about it.

so in addition to low quality tabs, you get scammed.