How to do a subscription audit and cancel what you don't use

I read a lot of ledgers, and the line that surprises people most is rarely a big one. It is the column of small, regular charges that nobody chose this month: a streaming service from a free trial in spring, an app that renewed for a year in August, a gym that still takes its money every month. One at a time they look harmless. Together they are often a second phone bill.

The surveys say the same. CNET's 2026 subscription survey, reported on 16 July 2026, found Americans spending an average of $111 a month on subscriptions, or $1,332 a year, up 23% on the year before, with about $252 a year going to subscriptions nobody uses. As ABC7 put it on 27 July 2026, that unused figure was $204 the year before. Prices have moved too: the same CNET coverage counted eight video and music streaming services that had raised prices since the start of 2026. And people have noticed. In a NerdWallet survey reported on 7 April 2026, 55% of Americans said they planned to cut back significantly on subscriptions this year.

October is a good month to do it. The holidays are about to bring a wave of free trials and "first three months for $1" offers, and the subscriptions you already have are easier to judge before more are added. Here is how to do a subscription audit in an evening.

How do I find all my subscriptions?#

You cannot cancel what you cannot see, and the hardest part of a subscription audit is the list. Memory is a poor source: most people remember the services they use and forget the ones they pay for.

Work from the money instead:

1. Go back at least three months of statements. Monthly charges will show up three times. Do this for every card and every bank account, including the card you only use online.
2. Then look back twelve months for annual charges. These are the ones that hide. A $79.99 renewal appears once a year, so a three-month window can miss it entirely.
3. Check the app stores. Subscriptions bought through a phone are billed by the store, and they often appear on the statement under the store's name rather than the service's. The subscriptions page in your phone's settings lists them one by one.
4. Search your email for "receipt", "renewal", "trial" and "your plan". This catches the charges hidden behind a payment service, and the trials that have not converted yet.
5. Note the currency. A service billed in dollars on a card in euros or pounds costs a little more than the price shown, once the exchange rate and any card fee are added. The multi-currency post covers how to record those honestly.

For each one, write down four things: the name, the price, how often it charges, and the next charge date. That last one matters more than it looks, because it tells you how long you have to decide.

Price everything per month#

A list with "$12.99 a month" next to "$79.99 a year" next to "$4 a month for now" is hard to compare. Turn every line into a monthly equivalent: monthly prices stay as they are, annual prices are divided by 12, and weekly ones are multiplied by 52 and divided by 12.

Then add them up. This is the number most people get wrong. Before you look at the total, write down what you think it is. The gap between the guess and the sum is a good measure of how much subscription creep has happened.

Keep, cut or downgrade#

Now go through the list one line at a time and ask one question: have I used this in the last 90 days, and would I sign up for it again today at this price?

That gives you three answers:

• Keep. You used it recently and would pay for it again. Leave it alone.
• Cut. You have not used it in 90 days, or you only signed up for a trial. Cancel it.
• Downgrade. You use it, but not enough for the tier you are on. Most services have a cheaper plan, an ad-supported plan or an annual price that costs less per month than monthly billing.

One rule keeps this honest: "I might use it" is not a reason to keep something. Most services let you rejoin in a minute, so cancelling costs you nothing but the time to sign up again.

A worked example: eight charges and one guess#

Here is how it looks on real numbers. Say she goes through three months of statements and twelve months of annual charges, and finds eight subscriptions. Before adding them up, she guesses she spends about $60 a month.

The monthly equivalents are $17.99 + $11.99 + $12.99 + $2.99 + $6.67 (that is $79.99 ÷ 12) + $45.00 + $9.99 + $4.00 = $111.62 a month, or $1,339.39 a year. Her guess was $60. The real figure is almost twice that.

Her decisions save:

• Second streaming service: $11.99 × 12 = $143.88 a year.
• Fitness app, cancelled before 14 November: $79.99 a year.
• Photo-editing app: $9.99 × 12 = $119.88 a year.
• Gym, from $45 to $30: $15 × 12 = $180.00 a year.

That is $143.88 + $79.99 + $119.88 + $180.00 = $523.75 a year, or about $43.65 a month. Her subscriptions now cost $1,339.39 − $523.75 = $815.64 a year, which is $67.97 a month.

There is one more line to watch. The news site's introductory price ends in December. At $15.99 instead of $4.00, it adds $11.99 a month, which would take her back up to $79.96. She does not need to decide now, but she does need to know the date, so she sets a reminder for the week before it changes and decides then whether it is worth $15.99.

Notice where the money was. Not one of the cuts was something she enjoyed. A service she stopped watching, a trial she forgot, an app she opened twice, and a gym tier she was not using. That is what most audits find.

Stop it from creeping back#

An audit is a snapshot. Subscriptions start growing again the day after, so a few habits keep the list short:

1. Put every subscription in your budget as a recurring bill. If it is in the budget, a new one has to come from somewhere. If it is not, it quietly comes out of everything else.
2. Put annual renewals in a sinking fund. A $79.99 renewal is $6.67 a month set aside, not a surprise in November. The sinking funds post shows how.
3. Write down the end date of every trial on the day you start it. If you would not pay the full price, cancel straight away; many services keep the trial running until its end date even after you cancel.
4. Keep proof when you cancel. Save the confirmation email or take a screenshot. The rules on how easy cancelling has to be vary by country and by state, and a confirmation number settles most disputes.
5. Repeat the audit twice a year. Once before the holidays and once in spring catches most trials and most price rises.

None of this is advice about your money specifically. It is arithmetic you can run on your own statements, and your own statements will tell you more than any average.

What to ask an advisor about it#

Inside Azno, recurring bills sit in the same ledger as your budgets and goals, so the list and the total are a few questions rather than an evening with three months of statements:

• "List every recurring charge in the last twelve months, with its price, how often it charges and the monthly equivalent." — the full list, including the annual renewals a three-month window would miss.
• "Which recurring charges have gone up in price this year, and by how much?" — the price rises that happened quietly, line by line.
• "Add the news subscription as a recurring bill at $15.99 a month from 1 December." — this comes back as a proposal, and nothing is written until you approve it. The Advisor never cancels a subscription or moves money for you; that part stays with you.

If your subscriptions have never been added up, create an account and put this month's list in. The sum is usually the most persuasive argument for the cuts.