Subscriptions Are Getting Out of Hand. Here’s How to Manage Them.

According to a Deloitte survey, the average American subscribed to 12 paid media and entertainment services pre-pandemic. Among those age 25 to 40, who averaged 17 subscriptions, 40% reported feeling overwhelmed by the number of their subscriptions and intend to reduce them.

I admit, I am among the overwhelmed. These subscriptions add up to enormous sums over the long run. In researching my own costs for this column, I learned that I would pay nearly $540 for HBO Now over the next three years.

I lament the bygone days of one-time fees. In 2011, I signed up for Pinboard, an ad-free bookmarking site with an emphasis on speed, for the sweet price of $9.33. I felt some pride when the site started charging a subscription fee to new users in 2015.

Last week, the site’s founder and sole engineer, Maciej Ceglowski, laid out a plea to Pinboard old-timers like me: Voluntarily convert your account to subscription to keep the site running. I called Mr. Ceglowski to ask him about the email—and what subscription-fearing users like me should know about the costs developers face.

“I’m like a guy that owns a storage unit. You rent from me, and my job is to make sure nobody breaks in, and your stuff is there whenever you come back for it,” he said. His role is largely custodial, he said, which includes keeping the server hardware running and writing all of its code. Mr. Ceglowski has added new features over the years, including the ability to archive bookmarked pages that might go offline. More subscribers, paying $22 a year, would allow him to hire an engineer to help with upkeep of the still-growing site.

Mr. Ceglowski said that some of the old-timers who agreed to convert their account opted for a 10-year, $109 plan. It’s another one-time payment of sorts, just a lot bigger this time.

Recurring revenue helps small companies like Pinboard stay solvent—and it amounts to big bucks for larger firms. That’s why so many businesses are drawn to the model, said Steve Tadelis, an economics professor at University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. Recurring payments provide a predictable revenue stream, and companies can appeal to different customers through varied pricing tiers. Plus, firms can take advantage of lazy unsubscribers, he said. A CreditCards.com poll found that 48% of respondents said they forgot to cancel a free trial before being charged by an automatic renewal.

I recognize the irony in these words appearing in a publication that requires subscribers to call customer service to cancel their subscription—except where an online option is required by law. “In order to best serve our members, we have begun testing options for online cancellation,” said a spokesman for Dow Jones, which publishes The Wall Street Journal.

So what incentivizes customers to keep on paying? A product like Ring, which reminds users of its utility daily, said Kirthi Kalyanam, a marketing professor at Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business. “Every time you get a notification that someone is at your door, it reaffirms the value of that service,” he said. When customers can predict their future usage of products, they’re more likely to pay.

For all those subscriptions you aren’t as happy about, here are ways to track them all down, avoid overpaying and even find replacements with one-time fees.

Tips for Managing Your Many Subscriptions

Audit your subscriptions. You can calculate how much you’re spending on subscriptions by itemizing them in a spreadsheet, like I do—or use an app that crunches numbers for you. TrackMySubs and Bobby are well-designed management tools but limit the number of subscriptions you can add before charging their own monthly fee. Subby is a good free Android option offering unlimited subscriptions.

There are also apps that ingest your banking and credit-card information and scour the data for bills. Mint, the popular budgeting software from Intuit, recently rolled out an automated subscription finder for its iOS app (available on Android soon), but it only tracks monthly recurring fees. Trim and Truebill not only identify recurring charges, monthly and annual, they can also negotiate those bills down for you—but keep a cut of the savings and offer upsell premium plans of their own.

Truebill was best at identifying my subscriptions. Just note, these services require your financial-account credentials, which are authenticated through a third-party service called Plaid. You’d have to be comfortable sharing login information with Plaid to use these apps. A Plaid spokeswoman said the company doesn’t share your financial-institution username and password with the apps you’re using.

Check your app store for forgotten subscriptions. iPhone users: Open Settings, tap your name and then Subscriptions. Android users: Go to the Play Store, tap Menu and select Subscriptions. On Amazon, go to your Account and click Memberships and Subscriptions.

Search your inbox. Can’t remember what other services you paid for or how you paid for them? Use queries like “subscription,” “payment,” “confirmation” and “order” to find emailed invoices.

Restrict in-app purchases for shared devices. If you share a device with children, or they’re part of a family plan, this will help prevent surprise charges. iPhone users: Turn on Ask to Buy in Family Sharing or go to Settings, tap your name, select Media and purchases, then Password Settings. Android users: Go to the Google Play Store, and in Settings, select Require authentication for purchases.

Disable auto-renewal for services. Nothing’s more dangerous than a subscription on autopilot. Add reminders to your calendar to re-subscribe so you’re forced to opt back in every month or year.

Check for a one-time pay option. For example, Microsoft offers Office 2019 to home users for a flat $150. Otherwise, you’d need a Microsoft 365 subscription, which typically starts at $7 a month. There are caveats: It’s limited to one Mac or PC computer, and doesn’t come with Microsoft 365’s cloud storage or collaboration features. An Office update is coming later this year, so you might want to hold off.

If there’s a free trial, cancel right away. That way, you won’t get charged if you forget. Through the Apple App Store and Google Play store, you can unsubscribe to any app, and retain access to the trial until the period is over.

If you forget, your credit card might have you covered. Dispute the charge if you believe the merchant violated your credit card’s policy on recurring-fee disclosure. Visa, American Express and Mastercard have policies that outline requirements for recurring-charge notification and clear cancellation instructions. ( Mastercard’s policy only covers physical products.)

The service may offer a good deal to convince you to stay. In researching this column, I discovered a few services on my credit-card bill that I thought were a little too pricey. After I hit the cancel button, three proposed discounted rates that were too good to refuse—so I continued my subscriptions. For now.

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Write to Nicole Nguyen at [email protected]