Subscription Cost Calculator
Every recurring charge you are paying
Your result will appear here
Fill in the fields on the left and this updates as you type.
Know what this estimate is based on
- Jurisdiction
- General mathematical model
- Scope and limitations
- Planning estimate only. Enter complete, current figures and keep an appropriate buffer for irregular or unexpected expenses.
- Source links checked
- Jul 30, 2026
Built and regression-tested by Smart Tools Lab. It has not been individually reviewed by a licensed financial, tax, or legal professional.
How to use
- 01
Work through the last two card and bank statements rather than from memory, and fill the eight monthly categories — streaming, music and audio, apps and cloud, gaming, news and learning, gym and memberships, delivery and shopping, and anything else billed monthly.
- 02
Add the subscriptions billed once a YEAR in their own box, totalled. The page spreads them across twelve months so they sit beside the monthly ones on the same scale.
- 03
Be honest about the unused line: of everything above, what have you not actually opened in the last month? That figure is the only part of the total that is free to cut.
- 04
Set the annual price rise you expect at renewal. It is what turns a flat ten-year total into a realistic one, and renewals are where subscription spending actually grows, because they never require you to agree to anything.
- 05
Read the monthly total, then the ten-year figure beside it. The invested-instead line is a single stat here for scale — the full version of that question, on any purchase and after tax, belongs on the opportunity-cost page.
Formula
Monthly total = the eight monthly categories + annual-billed ÷ 12. Per year = monthly × 12. Ten years at flat prices = annual × 10. Ten years with renewals = the sum of annual × (1 + price rise)^year for years 0 through 9, so the increases compound rather than adding. Invested instead = the future value of the same monthly amount at your assumed return for 120 months: monthly × ((1 + r ÷ 12)^120 − 1) ÷ (r ÷ 12), which collapses to monthly × 120 when the rate is zero.
Example
$48 of video streaming, $17 of music, $35 of apps and cloud, $20 of gaming, $25 of news and learning, $55 of gym and memberships, $30 of delivery and $22 of other — $252 a month — plus $340 billed annually, which is another $28. That is $280 a month and $3,364 a year across nine lines, and the largest single line is the gym at $55, a fifth of the whole stack. Ten years at today's prices is $33,640; at a 5% rise every renewal it is $42,312, so $8,672 of the total is price increases nobody agreed to. The $40 a month marked unused is $480 a year, and at 7% it would have been $6,923 over the same decade. The whole $280 a month invested at 7% instead would be $48,521 against the $42,312 actually paid out — which is the scale of the trade-off, not an instruction to cancel everything.
Definitions
- Recurring charge
- Anything that renews without a fresh decision — monthly or annual, a service or a membership. If cancelling it requires an action and continuing does not, it belongs on this list.
- Annual billing
- Paying a year up front, usually at a discount worth roughly two months. The trade is a lower price for eleven months of commitment you cannot exit.
- Price escalation
- The rise applied at each renewal. It compounds, so a 5% annual increase adds far more across a decade than five times one year's rise.
- Opportunity cost
- What the same money would have become somewhere else. Carried here as one stat for scale; the full treatment, across several horizons and after capital gains tax, is its own page.
- Subscription audit
- A deliberate pass through every recurring charge, asking whether you would sign up again today at today's price. Twice a year is enough if it is actually scheduled.
Good to know
Why the total is invisible
Subscription spending is unusual among household costs in that no single participant has any reason to show you the sum. Each service prices itself against its own alternative — a streaming plan against a cinema ticket, a software licence against buying the thing outright, a delivery membership against paying for shipping — and every one of those comparisons is individually favourable. Nobody signs up for $3,364 a year; they sign up for $48 nine separate times, across several years, on two different cards, and the aggregate never appears anywhere because no bill contains it. The charges are also individually beneath the threshold at which a bank statement gets a second look, which is roughly the point of the pricing. That is why the only reliable way to fill this page in is to read two months of card and bank statements line by line rather than to list the services you can remember: memory reliably returns the ones you use and omits the ones you do not, which are the entire subject. Two categories account for most of the gap between what people estimate and what they pay — the subscriptions billed annually, which never appear in a monthly review, and anything charged to a card that is not the one you look at.
Renewals are where the growth happens
The number that surprises people is not the monthly total, which they can usually estimate within about a third. It is the ten-year figure, and the reason is that renewals compound. A stack costing $3,364 a year is $33,640 over a decade if prices never move, and $42,312 if each renewal carries a 5% increase — so $8,672 of the decade is price rises, arriving as emails rather than as purchases, none of which anyone ever agreed to. Streaming and software services have raised prices repeatedly since 2022, several of them more than once, and a subscription that has not been re-priced in your own mind for three years is costing more than the number you carry around. The practical consequence is that a subscription decision is not a decision about today's price but about a price that escalates on a schedule you do not control, for a service whose cancellation friction is deliberately higher than its signup friction. That asymmetry is worth pricing in when you sign up: the useful question is not whether it is worth $15 a month now, but whether it will still be worth $19 in four years, when cancelling requires finding the account you made with an email address you no longer use.
Trials, annual billing and the mechanics of leakage
Two structures account for most of the money that leaks out of a subscription stack. Free trials convert silently by design: the trial ends without a prompt, the first charge is small enough not to trigger a second look, and the card it lands on is often a secondary one. Two habits close nearly all of it — a calendar reminder set two days before every trial ends, entered at the moment you sign up rather than later, and a virtual card number for trials that you can close without touching your real card. Annual billing is the second, and it cuts both ways honestly. Paying a year up front is usually a genuine discount, commonly worth around two months, and it is also the reason a service you stopped using keeps charging you for eleven more months. The rule that resolves the tension: pay annually only for the two or three services you are certain of, and keep everything experimental on monthly billing, where cancelling costs at most one more charge. A third, smaller leak is worth naming because it is growing — subscriptions bundled inside something else, a phone plan or a retail membership, which do not appear as their own line and survive every audit that works from statements alone.
What cancelling is actually worth, and the limit of the argument
The invested-instead figure on this page exists to give the total a scale, not to issue an instruction. $280 a month invested at 7% for ten years is $48,521 against $42,312 actually paid out, and the $40 a month you marked as unused would have been $6,923 on its own. Read those as the size of the trade-off. The honest version of the argument stops there, because a subscription is not nothing: you are buying a service, and the alternative to a streaming plan is not $48 of pure saving but $48 of saving and an evening with nothing to watch. Where the argument is airtight is the unused line. Cancelling something you use is a trade-off with two sides; cancelling something you have not opened in a month is arithmetic with one, and it is the only part of the total that is free. For everything else the useful test is per service and takes ten seconds each: when did you last open it, and would you re-subscribe today, at today's price, knowing what you now know about how much you use it? Anything that fails both questions is what an audit is for. Twice a year is enough, and scheduling it matters more than the frequency — the entire failure mode here is that nothing ever prompts you.
Frequently asked questions
How much does the average person spend on subscriptions?
There is no benchmark on this page for a reason: published estimates of household subscription spending vary enormously depending on what counts as a subscription, and quoting one would be inventing a standard. The useful number is your own, and the reason it surprises people is structural — no single charge is large enough to notice, and no company has any reason to show you the total.
Why does the ten-year figure look so much larger than twelve times a year?
Because of renewals. Ten years at today's prices is one number; ten years with a price rise at every renewal is a much larger one, and none of the increase will have felt like a decision — a price rise arrives as an email rather than as a purchase. Streaming and software services have raised prices repeatedly since 2022, and a stack that has not been re-priced in three years is costing more than you think.
Should I pay annually or monthly?
Annual billing is usually a genuine discount, commonly around two months free, and it is also the reason a service you stopped using keeps charging you for eleven more months. The rule that resolves it: pay annually only for the two or three you are certain of, and keep everything experimental on monthly billing, where cancelling costs at most one more charge.
How do free trials end up costing money?
By design. The trial converts silently, the first charge is small enough not to trigger a second look, and the card it lands on is often not the one you check. Two habits fix most of it: a calendar reminder set two days before every trial ends, and a virtual card number for trials that you can close without touching your real card.
What is the invested-instead figure telling me?
The scale of the trade-off, not a plan — nobody cancels everything. It is the same monthly amount contributed to an investment at your assumed return instead of paid out, over ten years. If the return field is at zero the figure equals what you paid in, which is correct rather than broken; put a rate in and the gap opens up, and that gap is what the stack actually costs.
Which subscriptions are worth cancelling first?
The unused ones, because cancelling something you use is a trade-off and cancelling something you do not is arithmetic. After those, the honest test is per service: when did you last open it, and would you re-subscribe today at today's price? Anything that fails both is what the audit is for.
How often should I audit them?
Twice a year is enough, and putting it on the calendar matters more than the frequency — the whole failure mode here is that nothing ever prompts you. A good trigger is the month a card expires or is replaced, because that is when the dormant charges surface anyway.
Are gym memberships and delivery services really subscriptions?
For this purpose, yes: anything that renews without you deciding again belongs on the list. Gym memberships in particular are worth their own look, because the useful question there is cost per visit rather than cost per month — an annual-fee break-even calculation answers that better than a total does.