Subscription Audit Checklist

Here’s the 10-second test from our video: open your bank app, search “subscription”, and count. Most people find more than they expected — and at least one they forgot about completely.

This checklist walks you through a full subscription audit in about 20 minutes: where charges hide, how to decide what stays, how to cancel so it sticks, and what to do when a company makes canceling hard.

What a “small” subscription really costs

Monthly prices are designed to feel small. Here’s the same price over one and three years:

Monthly price	Per year	Over 3 years
$4.99	$59.88	$179.64
$7.99	$95.88	$287.64
$9.99	$119.88	$359.64
$12.99	$155.88	$467.64
$15.99	$191.88	$575.64
$22.99	$275.88	$827.64

Keep this table next to you during Step 4. “Do I want this for $120 a year?” is a different question from “do I want this for $9.99?”

Step 1: Pull 3 months of statements

Look at every account a subscription could hide in: your checking account, every credit card, PayPal, and gift-card balances on your phone. Three months matters because some charges are quarterly.

Search for these words:

• subscription, monthly, renew, renewal, membership, plan, premium, plus, pro
• “recurring” or “auto-pay”
• Any charge that shows up on the same day each month

Step 2: Check the hidden lists

Many subscriptions are billed through someone else, so the company name on your statement is “Apple” or “Google” instead of the app. These are the places to cancel:

Where	How to find your subscriptions
iPhone / iPad	Settings → tap your name → Subscriptions
Android	Play Store app → profile icon → Payments & subscriptions → Subscriptions
Amazon	Your Account → Memberships & subscriptions
PayPal	Settings → Payments → Manage automatic payments
Streaming TV boxes	The account settings on the device (Roku, Fire TV, etc.)
Your phone bill	Look for extra lines or third-party charges you don’t recognize

Menu names change now and then, but those are the places to look.

Step 3: Write them all down

Make a quick list with four columns: name, cost, how often, last time you used it. Add a fifth column with the yearly cost from the table above. Seeing the yearly total is the eye-opener.

Can’t tell what a charge is?

Statement descriptors are often cryptic: a string of capital letters, a city name and a phone number. To identify one:

1. Search your email for the exact amount (for example “$8.47”). Receipts and renewal notices usually turn up.
2. Search the descriptor text online, minus the numbers. Common ones are easy to find.
3. Check your app store purchase history. Apple and Google list every charge with the app’s real name.
4. Tap the transaction in your bank app. Many banks now show the merchant’s full name and logo.
5. Still stuck? Call your card issuer. They can see more merchant detail than your statement shows.

If you truly don’t recognize it and never signed up, treat it as possible fraud: report it to your bank or card issuer right away rather than just canceling.

Step 4: Sort each one into Keep, Cut or Rotate

• Keep: you use it every week and would sign up again today.
• Cut: you haven’t used it in a month, or you forgot it existed.
• Rotate: streaming services. Keep one at a time, binge what you want, cancel, and switch next month.

Ask one honest question for each: “If this cost the same amount in cash every month, would I hand it over?”

A case with numbers

Here’s an example household audit (prices are illustrative):

Subscription	Monthly	Decision	Yearly after
Streaming service A	$15.99	Rotate	—
Streaming service B	$12.99	Rotate	—
Streaming service C	$9.99	Rotate	—
Music	$11.99	Keep	$143.88
Cloud storage	$2.99	Keep	$35.88
Fitness app (unused since March)	$14.99	Cut	$0
Meal-kit “pause” that restarted	$59.96	Cut	$0
News site trial that converted	$4.99	Cut	$0
Rotation: one streaming service at a time	~$13 avg	—	~$156

Before: $133.89 a month, or $1,606.68 a year. After: about $336 a year — roughly $1,270 back without giving up anything the household actually used.

Rotation alone does a lot. Three streaming services kept all year at the prices above cost $467.64; keeping just one at a time costs around $156.

Step 5: Cancel (the right way)

1. Cancel at the source. Deleting an app does not cancel the subscription.
2. Screenshot the confirmation or save the email.
3. Check next month’s statement to make sure the charge stopped.
4. Ask for a refund if you were charged recently for something you didn’t use. It doesn’t always work, but it often does.

The FTC gives the same basic advice: follow the company’s cancellation instructions, keep a copy of your request and notes from any calls or chats, and keep watching your statements afterward (FTC).

When a company won’t let you cancel

If you’ve tried and the charges keep coming, escalate in this order:

1. Put it in writing. Email or message the company saying you’re canceling and withdrawing permission for automatic payments. Keep the date.
2. Tell your bank. If the charge comes straight from your bank account, the CFPB says you can tell your bank or credit union that you’ve revoked the company’s authorization, and follow up in writing. Your bank may suggest a stop payment order, which usually carries a fee (CFPB).
3. Dispute the charge. For a credit card, send a written billing-error notice within 60 days after the statement with the charge was sent to you; the card company must acknowledge it within 30 days (CFPB).
4. Report it. The FTC takes reports at ReportFraud.ftc.gov, and so does your state attorney general’s office.

The CFPB has also warned companies that hiding cancellation or charging without clear consent can break federal consumer law (CFPB Circular 2023-01).

One catch: stopping payments doesn’t cancel a contract. If you signed a 12-month gym or phone contract, you may still owe the balance.

Step 6: Downgrade before you cancel

Before cutting something you do use, check for a cheaper tier: ad-supported streaming plans, family plans you can share with your household, or student and senior discounts.

Annual billing only saves money if you’d keep the service most of the year. A $9.99-a-month service that costs $99.99 a year breaks even at about 10 months. If you usually cancel after a season, monthly is cheaper.

Shared and family accounts

Family plans can save money, but they also make subscriptions harder to see:

• Find the payer. In a shared streaming or music plan, only the account owner sees the charge. Ask everyone in the house which accounts they pay for.
• Look for duplicates. It’s common for two people in the same home to pay for the same service separately, or for one person’s plan to already include a service someone else is paying for.
• Check kids’ accounts. In-app purchases and small subscriptions on a child’s tablet often bill to a parent’s card under the app store’s name.
• Remove people who moved out. An ex-roommate or a grown child may still be on your family plan — fine if that’s the plan, costly if nobody noticed.

Step 7: Stop new ones from sneaking in

• Free trials: set a phone reminder for two days before the trial ends — the moment you sign up.
• Watch for pre-checked boxes at checkout that add a membership or “protection plan.”
• Use one card for all subscriptions so they’re easy to spot.
• Repeat this audit every three months. Put it in your calendar.

Mistakes that keep charges coming

• Deleting the app instead of canceling the subscription.
• “Pausing” instead of canceling. Many pauses restart automatically after one to three months.
• Canceling on the last day. Time zones and billing cycles vary; cancel a few days early.
• Forgetting the second account. Family members’ app store accounts and old email addresses often hold the forgotten ones.
• Trusting a renewal notice that asks for your card number. Contact the company through its website or app instead.

The checklist (copy this)

• Searched 3 months of bank and card statements
• Checked iPhone/Android subscription lists
• Checked Amazon, PayPal and the phone bill
• Listed every charge with its yearly cost
• Sorted into Keep / Cut / Rotate
• Cancelled at the source and saved confirmations
• Asked for refunds where it made sense
• Set a reminder for the next audit

What to do with the money

The money only counts if it goes somewhere. Move what you saved into savings the same day, or use it to shade squares on the $5,000 savings challenge. The phone bill is usually the next biggest recurring charge — run the 5-minute phone plan check. Want to find more leaks? Try the small-spend leak calculator.

Try it now: add up your subscriptions in 60 seconds with our free subscription cost calculator.