The Subscription Cost & Savings Calculator adds up every streaming service, app, membership and tool you pay for and shows the real annual cost. It is the fastest way to expose how much those “just a few pounds a month” charges total over a year — and to see exactly what you’d save by cancelling.
Why annual totals matter
Subscriptions are designed to feel small: £12.99 here, £9.99 there. But five services at £10/month is £600 a year. The calculator converts every plan to a monthly figure (dividing yearly plans by 12), sums them, and multiplies by 12 so the true annual spend is impossible to miss.
Flag and save
Tick the subscriptions you’re considering cancelling and the tool shows the yearly saving from dropping them — turning a vague “I should cancel something” into a concrete number.
Everything runs locally in your browser. Nothing is saved or uploaded, so your subscription list stays completely private and clears when you close the page.
How to run a full subscription audit
People consistently underestimate their subscription spend because the charges are spread across different billing dates, payment methods, and email addresses. A systematic audit usually surfaces charges that have been forgotten entirely. Here is an effective method:
- Search your email for the words “receipt”, “invoice”, “subscription”, and “renewal” from the past 12 months. Look for emails from any service you may have signed up to.
- Check your bank and credit card statements month by month. Regular small charges that appear every 4 weeks (not every month) are often subscriptions billed on a 28-day cycle, which means 13 charges a year rather than 12.
- Check your app store subscriptions. On iOS: Settings → Apple ID → Subscriptions. On Android: Play Store → Subscriptions. These lists often include apps you downloaded once and forgot.
- Add each subscription to this calculator with its name, cost, and whether it bills monthly or yearly.
Most people who go through this process find at least two or three services they are paying for but no longer actively use.
Monthly vs yearly billing: the hidden cost difference
Many services offer a discount for paying annually. For example, a service that costs £12.99/month (£155.88/year) may offer an annual plan at £99/year — a saving of about 36%. The calculator normalises both to an annual figure so you can see the true cost of each billing choice side-by-side.
However, annual plans also carry a commitment risk: if you cancel mid-year most services do not issue a refund, so the “saving” only materialises if you use the service for the full 12 months. For services you use sporadically, the monthly plan often costs less in practice even at the higher per-month rate.
Practical tips for cutting subscription spend
The pause test. Before cancelling a streaming or fitness subscription, pause it for a month if the service allows it. If you do not notice or miss it, cancel. If you find yourself wanting it back, it is earning its keep.
Household sharing. Many services allow family or household plans at a meaningful discount over individual plans. If you are paying for multiple individual plans across a household, consolidating to a shared plan can save several hundred pounds a year.
Annual review cadence. Running this calculator once every 6–12 months — rather than only when you notice your bank balance — catches services that renewed automatically after a free trial ended or after a price increase took effect without a prominent notification.