How to track subscriptions

A subscription is a bill that renews until you stop it. The monthly ones are visible because the charge repeats. The yearly ones are the ones that clear a card in a month when you were not thinking about them, often with a cancellation window that has already closed.

Tracking them is a one-time sweep plus a due date for each renewal.

Find the ones you already pay

Look in three places. Any one of them will miss something.

Card and bank statements, three months. Search for repeating amounts and for company names you do not buy from in a store. Three months catches most monthly plans. It misses a charge that only happens in April.

Statements from a year ago, the same month. This is where annual renewals show up. Scroll the same card for last year, not just this month.

The app store and email. On an iPhone, Settings → your name → Subscriptions lists many App Store plans. Search your inbox for “your subscription,” “renews,” “free trial,” and “receipt.” Trials convert to paid plans on a date buried in the original email.

Write every one down, including the ones you mean to keep. A list of only the suspects is how a favorite service lapses.

Record the renewal, not just the name

For each subscription:

The name and what it is for, if the charge name is cryptic
The amount
Monthly, yearly, or something else
The next renewal date
Which card it bills
Whether you still use it

The card matters when you want to cancel a charge you cannot identify. The date matters more than the amount. You can decide to cancel on the day you are reminded. You cannot decide on a date you did not know.

Decide before the renewal, not after the charge

Cancelling after you have been billed sometimes gets a refund and often does not. The useful reminder is a couple of days before the renewal, with enough notice to open the account and turn it off.

Sort the list into three piles:

Keep. You used it in the last month, or it is an annual tool you still want. Leave the renewal in place and keep the reminder so a price increase is not a surprise.
Cancel. You did not use it. Cancel now, and leave it on the list until the end of the period you already paid for, so you notice if it bills again.
Not sure. Give it until the next renewal. The reminder is the deadline for the decision. “Not sure” without a date becomes “keep forever.”

Free trials go in the cancel pile unless you have already decided to pay. Put the conversion date on the list the day you sign up.

Price changes and cards that expire

A subscription that goes from $8 to $13 is still the same bill. Update the amount when the receipt arrives so the list matches what will be charged. If you replace a card, the next renewal is when you find out which services had the old number. That failure looks like a random missed payment, and some of them retry and add their own fee.

Keep renewals with the rest of your bills

Subscriptions are bills with a smaller balance and a worse habit of hiding. They belong on the same due-date list as rent and the electric bill, with a repeat of monthly or yearly. A yearly repeat is the whole trick. A monthly reminder for an annual plan will cry wolf eleven times and you will ignore the twelfth.

How to keep track of monthly bills is the same setup. In Billy, a subscription is a bill with a yearly or monthly repeat. Set a reminder a day or two before the renewal if you want time to cancel, and leave the due-date reminder on if you still need to pay it yourself. App Store and card subscriptions that charge automatically can sit on the list without an alarm, so you still see them coming.