Glossary · Business & commercial
Early termination fee
Also said as
ETFcancellation feeearly exit fee
An early termination fee is what a company charges you for leaving a contract before it ends — sometimes up to half the remaining value.
Why it matters to your business
Annual plans paid monthly carry these quietly: the fee lives in the fine print and surfaces exactly when you can least afford it — the FTC fined one design giant $75 million over hiding exactly this.
The catch · what vendors don't say
The trap isn't the fee itself, it's the obstruction: buried disclosures and cancellation flows designed to deter are the pattern regulators actually penalized.