Why subscriptions are easy to underestimate
Recurring payments are designed to be painless: small amounts, different billing dates, some yearly and some monthly, many on different cards or app stores. Adding them up in one place, all converted to the same period, is usually the eye-opener. Your bank or card statement is the best checklist — search it for the last 12 months and look for repeats.
How the totals are calculated
Untick “Keep” on anything you'd cancel and the calculator shows the yearly saving and your trimmed monthly total. Prefer to rotate services instead of cancelling for good? Use a second list in the scenario tabs — for example, keep one video service at a time and switch every few months.
What the savings could become
If you enter an annual return, the calculator shows what the money you'd cut could grow to over ten years with monthly deposits — a useful way to put small, frequent costs in perspective. Leave it blank and it simply shows ten years of the saving set aside. Want to plan the saving properly? Try the Compound Savings calculator.
Tips for trimming without losing what you value
- Switch heavily used services to yearly billing if it's cheaper, and lightly used ones to pay-as-you-go or ad-supported tiers.
- Check for duplicates: family plans that overlap with a partner's, cloud storage bundled with a phone plan, or a gym membership you've replaced with a class pass.
- Set a reminder before free trials and annual renewals. Consumer protection rules in all four countries increasingly require easy cancellation — see the official guidance in the sources.
Your list stays in your browser. Share links leave it out unless you tick the box to include it.
Sources
- Federal Trade Commission (Consumer Advice) — Free trials, auto-renewals and negative option subscriptions
- GOV.UK — Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (subscription contracts)
- ACCC — Subscription traps and unsolicited consumer agreements
Results are estimates based on the figures you enter and the stated assumptions. They are not financial, tax, legal or engineering advice. Spotted a problem? Tell us.