Ultimate Guitar Reviews 1,948

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.

EDIT: Once posting in trustpilot, the company then allowed for a full refund. As good as this is, I think if the yearly renewal is cancelled within at least a week, a full refund should be honoured.

Another company that penalise you for not cancelling an auto-renew. Seen the money come out and requested a refund within a few hours, the company then responded saying I can have a partial refund.
It is a disgrace that companies are allowed to do this, and even more of a disgrace that these companies show little remorse for taking money for nothing.

far to scammy and underhanded to get you to sign up for extras, “try this for 7 days free” click the link then billed for a year instantly. Refund refused. Likely be taking them to small claims court for malicious and pressured selling, the extra wasn’t any good anyway tried it when I thought it was a trial for 2 mins went to cancel that’s when I say it had signed me up to a full year.

The basic part of the app is fine I guess but doesn’t offer anything you can’t get for free online now. The extras are pants.
Dirty,Underhanded Scamming!

Bad customer service, lots of ads and pop ups, upselling, sneaky payment structures.

⚠️ Stay Away from Ultimate Guitar or Risk Losing Your Money ⚠️

I signed up for what was advertised as a 7-day “free trial” — but instead, I was immediately charged EUR 100 for a full-year subscription.

I filed a claim with Apple, explaining the misleading conduct and requesting a refund. Shockingly, Apple rejected both my initial claim and my appeal.

I then contacted Ultimate Guitar directly, only to be told that they “cannot do anything” since the purchase was through the Apple Store — how convenient.

This experience left me both disappointed with Apple’s lack of customer service and deeply frustrated by Ultimate Guitar’s dishonest practices.

I’m not alone — many others have had similar experiences. My advice: avoid Ultimate Guitar at all costs. Don’t let yourself get tricked the same way.

I’ll be sharing this warning across my networks and social media so others don’t fall into the same trap.

I joined a free 7 day trial for something and, despite canceling after the FIRST day, I was charged $99 which I DON'T HAVE IN THE BANK.
WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL?? Now I'm overdrawn and screwed.
Their response- we can knock off $24. Like, go screw yourselves.
I should have listened the negative reviews and not the people sucking them off.

Wow. Wish I had came here and looked at the Better Business Bureau website (where they have an "F") rating before doing business with them. I echo a lot of the other reviewers' experiences. Low quality. Very difficult to cancel. Impossible to get a full refund.

Most tabs I've found are unusable due to errors. There are a lot of better sources. Customer service is terrible. Very difficult to cancel subscription. Shady company.

One day, I was prompted with an intrusive pop up to change my existing subscription from a weekly basis to a yearly basis at a cheaper rate so, I accepted the offer. I made this change while logged into my existing account, but Instead of updating the subscription to my existing account to reflect the new rate, a completely different account was created with a different username. I had already cancelled the auto renew for the other subscription and could no longer log into my existing account without purchasing a new subscription! Ha! It gets better..I contacted customer support and they gave me 3 options to choose from, none of which refunded all of my money. Since I knew I would never do business with them again I chose the option that gave me the most money back and washed my hands clean. Oh, and remember the original account that I turned off after purchasing the subscription “upgrade?” The one I’m sure I canceled because I could no longer access the content..Yeah, that one. They went ahead and took the liberty of charging me for an additional week. Judging by the other reviews on here, I think they are probably going to need that $3 more than I do in the somewhat near future. This place is a disgrace. If you are considering a subscription, reconsider. If you are already subscribed do yourself a favor and see what else is out there. I was surprised to find other tab platforms out there for cheaper subscription rates and much better quality. The content on UG is actually pretty crummy. Wish this would have happened sooner..Good riddance UG!