The average person spends over $200 per month on subscriptions — and many don’t realize it. Streaming services, software, gym memberships, cloud storage, news sites, and app subscriptions add up fast, especially when you forget about ones you no longer use.
Spendly’s subscription tracker helps you see every recurring charge in one place so you can decide what’s worth keeping.
Common Subscriptions People Track
Most people underestimate both the number and the cost of their active subscriptions. Here’s what a typical subscription stack looks like:
| Category | Examples | Typical Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Streaming video | Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Max, YouTube Premium | $15-20/mo each |
| Streaming music | Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal | $11-17/mo |
| Cloud storage | iCloud, Google One, Dropbox | $3-10/mo |
| Gym & fitness | Gym membership, Peloton, fitness apps | $30-60/mo |
| News & media | NYT, WSJ, The Athletic, Substack newsletters | $5-15/mo each |
| Productivity | Microsoft 365, Notion, Todoist, 1Password | $3-14/mo |
| Delivery & food | DoorDash DashPass, Uber One, meal kits | $10-15/mo |
| Shopping | Amazon Prime, Costco, Walmart+ | $7-15/mo |
| Software & apps | Adobe Creative Cloud, VPN, language learning | $5-55/mo |
A household with just one streaming service, a music subscription, cloud storage, a gym, a news site, and Amazon Prime is already spending $100-150/month — around $1,200-1,800 per year. Add a second streaming service, a food delivery pass, and a couple of productivity tools, and you’re easily past $200/month.
Spendly tracks all of these in a single view so you can see the real total instead of guessing.
How Subscription Tracking Works
Spendly identifies recurring transactions in your expense history and groups them together. You get:
- A complete list of all your active subscriptions
- Total monthly cost so you can see the real number
- Renewal dates and upcoming charges
- Category tagging to organize subscriptions by type (entertainment, productivity, health, etc.)
How Recurring Detection Works
When you log expenses consistently in Spendly, the app analyzes your transaction history to find recurring patterns. Here’s what happens behind the scenes:
- Pattern matching. Spendly looks for transactions with the same or similar merchant name appearing at regular intervals — monthly, quarterly, or annually.
- Amount consistency. Recurring charges tend to be the same amount each time (or within a small range for metered services). Spendly flags transactions that match this pattern.
- Interval detection. The app distinguishes between monthly subscriptions, quarterly billing cycles, and annual renewals. A $99.99 charge that appears every December is treated differently from a $9.99 charge every month.
- Surfacing new subscriptions. When a new recurring pattern emerges — say you signed up for a streaming service two months ago — Spendly flags it as a detected subscription for you to confirm.
You always have the final say. Spendly suggests subscriptions based on patterns, but you can confirm, dismiss, or manually add any recurring charge. This keeps your subscription list accurate without requiring you to remember every service you’ve signed up for.
Find Subscriptions You Forgot About
It’s easy to sign up for a free trial and forget to cancel. Or to keep paying for a service you stopped using months ago. Spendly surfaces these hidden charges by analyzing your transaction patterns.
When you log your expenses consistently, Spendly detects recurring charges automatically — even small ones that fly under the radar. That $4.99/month app you downloaded a year ago? It shows up in your subscription list right next to your $55/month gym membership.
Subscription Tracking vs. Manual Tracking
You could track subscriptions in a spreadsheet. Many people try. Here’s why a dedicated tracker works better:
- Spreadsheets go stale. You create a list in January, and by March you’ve signed up for two new services without updating it. Spendly detects new recurring charges automatically.
- Spreadsheets miss annual renewals. That $119 Amazon Prime charge hits once a year. It’s easy to forget about until it appears on your statement. Spendly tracks annual subscriptions alongside monthly ones and shows you the annualized cost.
- No renewal alerts. A spreadsheet won’t remind you that your antivirus renews next Tuesday. Spendly gives you upcoming renewal dates so you can cancel before you’re charged for another year.
- No integration with your budget. A subscription list in Google Sheets is disconnected from your overall spending picture. In Spendly, subscriptions are part of your budget, your reports, and your analytics — one system instead of three.
Know Your True Recurring Costs
Before you can cut subscription spending, you need to know the real total. Spendly calculates your monthly and annual subscription costs, broken down by category. You might discover that your “just a few subscriptions” actually cost more than your grocery budget.
Make Informed Cancellation Decisions
Not all subscriptions are wasteful. The goal isn’t to cancel everything — it’s to keep the ones that provide value and cut the rest. Spendly gives you the data to make those decisions:
- Usage vs. cost — Is that premium plan worth it if you use the basic features?
- Category balance — Are you spending too much on entertainment and not enough on tools that save you time?
- Trend data — Has your subscription spending been growing month over month?
Subscriptions in Your Budget
Subscription tracking integrates with Spendly’s budget planning tools. Set a monthly limit for subscriptions as a category, and Spendly tracks your recurring charges against that limit automatically.
Combine this with your spending reports to see how subscriptions compare to your other expenses and where there’s room to optimize.
Multi-Currency Subscriptions
Pay for services in different currencies? Spendly’s multi-currency support handles subscriptions in any currency, converting them to your base currency for accurate totals and reporting.
Your Data Stays Private
Spendly analyzes your transaction data locally to detect subscriptions. Your financial data is yours — it’s used only to power your personal dashboard and is never sold to third parties, used for advertising, or shared with subscription companies. You’re in full control of what you track and what you remove.
Stop the Subscription Creep
Subscription spending tends to grow slowly — a new service here, an upgraded plan there. Spendly’s analytics track this growth over time so you can catch the creep before it becomes a problem.
For a step-by-step guide to auditing your subscriptions, read our post on how to find and cancel forgotten subscriptions.