I paid for an app subscription I had forgotten for 11 months

The line on my statement I did not recognise

I logged into my bank account and went through my card payments line by line. Among the usual ones was a monthly charge of $9.90 for an app I had subscribed to and then forgotten.

I had not thought about that app in a long time. The subscription had been running for 11 months, renewing every month, and every charge had gone through without a single question. Eleven payments of $9.90 come to $108.90.

I cancelled it. The more useful question came after: how does a payment run for almost a year without me noticing?

How a subscription disappears from view

Nothing about it was hidden from me. Each part of the system worked as designed, and together they made it easy to miss.

• It renews by itself. Once a card is on file, the next payment needs nothing from you.
• The amount is small. A $9.90 charge sits among groceries and bills and does not stand out.
• Nothing reminds you. The receipt arrives as one more email, often in a promotions folder or a mailbox you rarely open.
• The app is out of sight. Once you stop using it, it slides to a back screen or gets deleted. Deleting the app does not cancel the subscription.

That last point catches a lot of people. Removing an app from a phone feels like ending the relationship with it. The store sees it differently: the subscription stays active until you cancel it.

Where to look for your own

A single check takes about fifteen minutes. Do it in this order, because the first step catches things the others miss.

1. Your bank and card statements. Go back three months and list every charge that repeats. This is where I found mine, and it covers every way a subscription can be paid.
2. The App Store. On an iPhone, open Settings, tap your name, then Subscriptions. It lists active and expired subscriptions with their renewal dates.
3. Google Play. Open the Play Store, tap your profile picture, then Payments & subscriptions and Subscriptions.
4. PayPal and other payment accounts. Anything you paid through them may be set up as a recurring payment there.
5. Your email. Search for “receipt”, “renewal” and “subscription” to find the services that bill you directly.

Charges made through Apple or Google often show the store’s name on a bank statement rather than the app’s, so step 1 tells you that something is there and steps 2 and 3 tell you what.

Cancel first, think later

When you find something you do not recognise, cancel it before deciding whether you want it. Most subscriptions keep working until the end of the period you have already paid for, so cancelling today costs you nothing this month.

If it turns out you wanted it after all, subscribing again takes a minute. Forgetting it for another year costs twelve more payments.

The cheapest moment to cancel a subscription is the moment you find it.

Many of them start as a free trial

Many subscriptions begin as a free trial that asks for a card up front. The trial ends on a date you agreed to once and never saw again, and the first charge goes through as quietly as the eleventh.

That is the gap we built a tool for. Our free trial reminder puts the end date of a trial in your calendar, with a warning a few days before, so the decision comes back to you while you can still cancel for free.

One check a year is enough

You do not need an app to track your apps. One careful look at your statements and your two app stores, once a year, finds almost everything, and a calendar reminder on every new trial stops the rest before it starts.

Never looking cost me $108.90. Pick a date for your own check, put it in your calendar, and start with your bank statement.