Advanced options
The invested figure assumes the monthly amount goes into savings or investments returning 5% a year instead. The point is not to cancel everything: it is to make the annual number visible, since GBP 45 a month never feels like GBP 540 a year.
What The Subscription Cost Calculator Works Out
- Per year: the monthly total multiplied by 12. Subscription pricing works because monthly numbers evade annual arithmetic: GBP 45 a month is GBP 540 a year. Household surveys consistently find people underestimate their total by a wide margin and carry at least one subscription they had forgotten entirely.
- Over 5 years: the annual figure multiplied by five at today's prices, GBP 2,700 in the example.
- If invested instead: the same yearly amount compounded at 5% for 10 years, nearly GBP 6,800 in the example. It reframes streaming bundles, unused gym memberships and forgotten apps without anyone needing to feel guilty about the ones actually used.
- Per day and per week (advanced): the annual total divided by 365 and 52, the smallest honest unit for comparing against a coffee or a lunch.
- Saved by cancelling (advanced): enter the monthly total of subscriptions you would not buy again today at the annual price. The card shows the yearly saving and what it would grow to if invested. Three months of bank statements, not memory, is how to find them; the app store subscription page catches the phone-managed layer.
- Price rises (advanced): compounds an annual increase into the five-year total. Introductory rates that step up and price rises announced by emails nobody reads are the common patterns; several major streaming services have raised prices by 10% or more in a single year.
- Going annual (advanced): annual plans are typically 15% to 40% cheaper than paying monthly for anything you keep deliberately. The card shows the saving if every subscription switched at your chosen discount. Retention offers at the cancellation page are a legitimate discount lever too.
- Investment return and years (advanced): override the 5% and 10-year assumptions in the invested card, for example 4% for a cash ISA or 7% for a long-run stock market average.
- Per person (advanced): splits the monthly and annual total across the household. Family plans designed for sharing and rotating streaming services with the show rather than the habit are the structural fixes that outlast any single purge; UK rules increasingly require easy online cancellation and renewal reminders.