By Alpit Patel and the aibrevo team · October 1, 2026 · 4 min read
What Happens to Your GoHighLevel Data When You Cancel?
Quick answer
HighLevel keeps a cancelled account's data for 90 days, and you can restore it by reactivating. Phone numbers and A2P registrations are deleted after 14 days and billed until then. After 90 days the data is permanently deleted with no backups, so export first.
Key takeaways
- HighLevel keeps a cancelled account's data for 90 days. Reactivating within that window restores it.
- Phone numbers and A2P registrations are deleted 14 days after cancellation, and the numbers keep being billed until then. Port numbers out before you cancel if you want to keep them.
- After 90 days the deletion is permanent. HighLevel says it keeps no backups of purged accounts.
- If you only need a break, the pause option costs $27 a month and keeps the data.
When you cancel GoHighLevel, HighLevel keeps your account data for 90 days, and reactivating in that window restores it. Your phone numbers and A2P registrations go sooner: they are deleted 14 days after cancellation, and you keep paying for the numbers until then. After 90 days everything is permanently deleted, and HighLevel says it keeps no backups.
That timeline comes from HighLevel’s help article on what happens to your data when you cancel, modified August 18, 2026. The practical upshot is simple: export what you need and deal with your phone numbers before you click cancel, not after.
The cancellation timeline
| When | What happens |
|---|---|
| Day 0 | You cancel the subscription. |
| Days 0 to 14 | Phone numbers and A2P registrations still exist. Numbers are still billed. |
| Day 14 | Phone numbers and A2P registrations are deleted. |
| Days 14 to 90 | Account data is retained. Reactivating restores it. |
| Day 90 | Permanent deletion. HighLevel keeps no backups of purged data. |
The 14-day mark is the one that hurts. A business phone number that has been on Google Business Profile, ads and invoices for years is gone two weeks after the cancel button, and so is the A2P registration that took days to approve.
What to do before you cancel
Work through this list in order:
- Decide what happens to each phone number. If you want to keep it, open a port request with your new carrier first. HighLevel’s phone number migration guide warns against cancelling or releasing a number before a move is confirmed complete. For a port away from HighLevel, contact HighLevel support for the account details your new carrier will ask for. Cancel only after the port shows as finished.
- Export contacts. Export every sub-account’s contacts to CSV, including custom fields and tags. This is the record most businesses cannot rebuild.
- Export invoices and payments. You need these for tax records long after the software is gone. If payments ran through Stripe, Stripe keeps its own records, but the invoice documents live in HighLevel.
- Save conversations you may need. Message history with customers, especially for regulated businesses, should be kept according to your own retention rules.
- Back up the build. HighLevel’s list also covers calendars and appointments, funnels and websites, automations, products, memberships, courses and audit logs. If an agency might reuse the setup, a snapshot saved to another agency account is the easiest way to keep workflows and funnels.
- Move course and membership content. Video and course files hosted in HighLevel need to be downloaded or rehosted before your members lose access.
Pause instead of cancel?
HighLevel offers a pause option at $27 a month that keeps your data available. It makes sense when the break is temporary: a seasonal business, a client contract on hold, or an agency that has not decided which platform to move to. Three months of pause costs $81, which is much less than rebuilding workflows, funnels and an A2P registration from scratch.
Pausing is not a reason to delay the phone-number decision, though. Check with HighLevel support what happens to numbers on a paused account before you rely on it to keep them.
If you are an agency with client sub-accounts
Cancelling the agency account affects every sub-account under it. Before cancelling:
- Tell each client in writing, with the date their account and numbers will stop working.
- Hand over each client’s contact export and, where they want to stay on HighLevel, arrange a sub-account transfer to the client’s own agency account or another agency.
- Port client numbers before the agency cancellation, not after. Fourteen days is not long once a carrier asks for paperwork.
Reactivating after cancelling
Within 90 days, reactivating restores your account data. Phone numbers and A2P registrations deleted at day 14 do not come back with it, so plan to buy or port numbers again and register a new A2P brand and campaign. At current rates that is $22.50 or $64 one-time plus a $10 monthly standard campaign fee, per HighLevel’s A2P fee article (modified September 24, 2026). Approval time starts from zero too.
Leaving because of cost or fit?
If you are cancelling because the bill is higher than expected, the GoHighLevel pricing calculator shows where the money goes, and a cleanup often costs less than a move. If the platform is the wrong fit, our GoHighLevel alternatives comparison covers the main options. Either way, we can help you export cleanly or rebuild properly; book a call through the GoHighLevel service page.
Sources
- HighLevel, what happens to your data when you cancel your HighLevel subscription, modified August 18, 2026.
- HighLevel, moving phone numbers: migration guide, modified September 4, 2026.
- HighLevel, A2P 10DLC messaging fees, modified September 24, 2026.