Do You Know How Many Subscriptions You’re Paying For?

Maybe Netflix comes to mind. Or Amazon Prime. But what about the weather app you signed up for, the photo-editing app you tried once, extra cloud storage, a game, a fitness app, Microsoft 365, antivirus software, or that free trial you forgot to cancel?

Subscriptions are easy to start and surprisingly easy to forget.

Many automatically renew monthly or yearly until you cancel them. And deleting an app from your phone does not necessarily cancel the subscription. Both Apple and Google warn that removing an app does not automatically stop an active subscription.

That means you could be paying for something that isn't even installed on your phone anymore.

Start by Checking Your Phone

Your phone is a good place to start because Apple and Google both give you a list of subscriptions purchased through their app stores. And you can cancel your subscriptions right there.

• iPhone: Open Settings > tap your name > Subscriptions.

• Android: Open the Play Store > tap your profile icon > Payments & subscriptions > Subscriptions.

Look through the list. Do you recognize everything? Are you actually using everything?

Before canceling and deleting something, check whether you are on a monthly or annual plan. You may have paid for a year and have several months left on your subscription. In that case, you can cancel the subscription so that it doesn't automatically charge you for another year, but you can continue to use the app until your subscription runs out.

But Don't Stop There

Checking the subscriptions on your phone is a good start, but it may not show you everything.

A subscription that you purchased directly from a company's website may be billed directly to your credit card or bank account instead of through Apple or Google. That's why your next stop should be your credit card and bank statements. Go back several months if you can. I would encourage you to look through an entire year, because some subscriptions are billed annually instead of monthly.

Look for:

• Charges that repeat every month.

• Charges that appear every three months or once a year.

• Small charges such as $2.99, $4.99, $9.99 or $14.99 that are easy to overlook.

• Company names you don't recognize.

• Services you recognize but no longer use.

• Free trials that quietly turned into paid subscriptions.

The FTC recommends watching your credit and debit card statements for subscription charges, especially after canceling something, to make sure the charges actually stop.

If you find a charge you don't recognize, don't automatically assume it is fraud. Search the company name shown on the statement and check your email for receipts. Sometimes the billing name is different from the name of the app or service you remember signing up for. If you still don't recognize it, contact the company or your bank or credit card issuer.

While You're At It, Check Your Saved Payment Methods

When you are looking into what subscriptions you have, you may also want to check what payment methods you have stored on your phone and in your browser. If you want to save them there, that is fine. But many people don't even realize there browser has saved these payment methods. If you aren't okay with having them saved, you can easily delete them.

Here's where to look:

Edge on a computer: Open Edge > click the three-dot menu > Settings > Passwords and autofill > Payment info.

Microsoft recently retired the old Edge Wallet area, but your saved payment information is still available under Passwords and autofill in Edge Settings.

You don't necessarily need to remove every saved card. Saving a payment method can be convenient. But it is worth looking at the list once in a while and removing old or unnecessary information.

Give Yourself a Subscription Checkup

Once you've checked your phone, your bank account, and your credit cards, make a quick list of what you're paying for. Then ask yourself one simple question for each subscription:

Am I actually using this?

A $5 or $10 subscription doesn't seem like much by itself. But several forgotten subscriptions can add up quickly, especially when they continue month after month.

And remember: canceling a subscription and deleting an app are two different things. Make sure you actually cancel the subscription before removing the app from your device.

One Simple Rule

If you haven't used the subscription for 30 days, cancel it.

You can always subscribe again if you decide you really do need it. Unlike reconnecting some traditional services, reinstalling an app generally doesn't come with a reconnection fee. Just keep in mind that the subscription price or plan available later could be different.

A few minutes spent checking your subscriptions today could save you money every month — and you may be surprised by what you find.