Billing is one system; protection is another.
If a payment fails, your account's Billing page shows it, and nothing changes on your PC.
Billing tracks whether your subscription is active.
- Active
- Cancelled, or a payment failed
- Ended
Protection is governed by the keyholder model and the local Windows app.
When billing changes.
Cancelling ends billing, not protection
If you cancel, your protection continues through the term you've already paid for, or the rest of your free trial, and billing does not switch it off after that either. Nothing is charged after that, and turning protection off works the same whatever your billing status. Your keyholder is alerted when you cancel or a payment fails.
A failed payment does not switch protection off
If a charge stays unpaid, the subscription ends and nothing more is charged, but a failed payment never silently unblocks a device: your existing protection and last-known-good rules stay in place.
The payer isn't automatically the keyholder.
Who holds the key and approves sensitive changes is the keyholder you choose, not whoever's card is on file.
What a keyholder does