Money
Your $12 Subscription Is Really $6 Every Time You Open It
A subscription feels like a flat fee until you divide it by real use, and that one calculation is what turns 'I should probably cancel this' into 'I'm cancelling this today'.
Money
Subscription Creep
The recurring charges that arrive one at a time and are never reviewed together.
A subscription review starts with a list of recurring charges, their renewal dates, and the reason to keep each one. This collection follows the decisions that come next: checking trial conversions, noticing small charges, and navigating cancellation. Begin with the recurring-charge inventory to see the whole picture, then read about free trials or cancellation flows according to where your review gets stuck.
Money
The Pause Button Is a Trap: Most Subscriptions Cannot Actually Be Paused
I looked for a pause option on every subscription I pay for. Most don't have one — a 'pause' often keeps charging a smaller fee, or still renews.
Money
The Same Subscription Is Two Different Cancellations: App Store vs. the Vendor
Cancelling on a vendor's website doesn't stop an App Store charge, and cancelling in the app often does nothing at all. Why a subscription you bought through Apple or Google is a separate billing relationship you have to close in a different place.
Money
I Keep Picking Annual Plans for the Same Reason I Regret Them
The annual discount works by making the full year feel cheaper, then making you too committed to quit at month four. Why I fall for it, and the question that stops me.
Money
The Subscription I Keep 'Just in Case' Is the One Costing Me the Most
Not every recurring charge is for something you use. The hardest ones to cancel are the ones you keep for a version of yourself who never shows up. Here is how I finally priced them per use.
Money
Why the Small Subscription Is Harder to Cancel Than the Big One
Small recurring charges get rounded to zero and never audited, so a $5 subscription outlives a $50 one. The reframe that finally makes you cancel.
Money
I Cancelled Nine Subscriptions and Timed Every One
The fastest took eleven seconds. The slowest took nine days and a phone call. How hard a service makes it to leave turned out to predict something about the service itself.
Money
A Free Trial I Forgot About Cost Me £238 Over Fourteen Months
The trial did what trials do. What made it expensive was three specific design choices that are standard across the industry, and one habit of mine that made them work.
Money
I Listed Every Recurring Charge on One Page. It Came to £2,904 a Year.
Not one of them felt like a significant decision when I made it. Seeing them together, on a single page with annual figures, is a different experience from seeing them monthly.