Few topics get computer users more exercised than subscriptions. We shake our virtual fists in the air and reminisce about the good old days when you owned the software you bought (effectively true, if not literally). There’s no going back, but how deeply have subscriptions become part of our lives? To tease out the answer to that question—and provide color for when I write more about the topic later—I’ve developed a five-question poll that asks about your experience with subscriptions.
How to Identify Subscriptions
Although you could quickly guess at the answers, part of the impetus for this poll is to help you audit your subscriptions to see how many you have, how much you’re spending on what, and if they’re worth continuing. Counting subscriptions and calculating how much you spend will take some time, so I recommend starting a simple spreadsheet to list all your subscriptions as you find them. Here are a few ways to help you speed up the data collection:
On the Mac, navigate to System Settings > Your Name > Media & Purchases > Subscriptions to see all your Apple-managed subscriptions. You can also do this on the iPhone or iPad.
Some bank accounts and credit cards flag recurring payments or let you filter for monthly/annual transactions. Alternatively, you can scroll through the transaction list to find subscription payments. Don’t forget about PayPal transactions.
If you’re comfortable asking a chatbot for help (best with paid accounts set not to train on your conversations), download several years’ worth of transactions and ask it to identify likely subscriptions.
If you maintain an email folder for receipts, scroll through and look for ones that repeat monthly or annually. I have long had such a folder, with filters set to capture receipts for regular expenses and vendors, and I find it invaluable for tracking down transactions of all types.
Numerous apps and services can help you track subscriptions and recurring payments. I haven’t used any of these, but you might look at Rocket Money, TrackMySubs, Bobby, Subscriptions, and SubTrack.
What to Include and Exclude
Deciding what counts as a subscription is somewhat complex. I’ve built a list of 14 categories with examples—it also serves as the fourth question—to help you think through the possibilities:
Productivity suite (Microsoft 365, Google Workspace)
Video streaming (Apple TV+, Netflix, Prime Video)
However, to keep the numbers comparable between people in very different situations, let’s exclude some types of subscriptions and recurring payments:
Business subscriptions: Stick with personal subscriptions, not those that primarily exist to support a business. I have various subscriptions that are necessary for TidBITS and the TidBITS Content Network (Cloudways, DigitalOcean, Cloudflare, Paid Memberships Pro, Jetpack Search, iStock, Xero, and more), but they’re qualitatively different from things I use personally, like Apple Music, CARROT Weather, Netflix, and Planta.
Infrastructure costs: Exclude unavoidable monthly connectivity costs, such as cellular and broadband plans. At this point, nearly everyone pays for cellular service and Internet connectivity.
Non-technical memberships and donations: It’s fine to include a TidBITS membership, where you’re essentially paying for Apple news, but don’t include your Planned Parenthood or NRA memberships. Also, don’t include the full cost of Amazon Prime, but do include the Amazon Prime TV component ($8.99 per month with ads, $11.98 per month without).
Even after excluding those categories, there are some edge cases:
Family subscriptions: For subscriptions shared among a family, include the full amount rather than prorating by person. However, if your spouse subscribes to something you don’t use, don’t include that.
Collections: Include the full price of offerings like Apple One, but in the first question, count only the number of individual subscriptions that you actually use. Setapp is also special; list the number of its apps you use along with its monthly cost.
Bundles: If a subscription like Netflix is bundled with an excluded category, such as a T-Mobile cellular plan, break it out and take either the amount you pay within the larger plan or, if that’s unknown, the list price of the equivalent standalone subscription.
Insurance: Since plans like AppleCare are optional, let’s include them.
Contributions: Definitely include voluntary recurring payments, such as for TidBITS and content received via Patreon or Substack. Also include subscriptions that are part of tax-deductible donations, such as getting Passport with a donation to the local PBS channel.
Hardware: Some devices require subscriptions to use them; make sure to include those in your answers.
Poll Questions
With that out of the way, here are the five questions.
How many subscriptions do you currently pay for?
0
1–2
3–5
6-10
11–15
16–25
More than 25
0voters
About how much per month do you spend on these subscriptions?
$0
<$10
$10–$24
$25–$49
$50–$99
$100–$149
$150–$199
$200–$299
$300 or more
0voters
How does that amount split between productivity/utility and entertainment/content?
Mostly productivity/utility (≈80/20)
Slightly productivity-skewed (≈60/40)
Balanced (≈50/50)
Slightly entertainment-skewed (≈40/60)
Mostly entertainment (≈20/80)
Not sure
0voters
Into which of the following categories do your subscriptions fall? Select all that apply.
Should I treat TurboTax as a subscription? It technically is not since I pay for it every year again only once I file my taxes. But since I just pay for it without even thinking about it or bothering to check for alternatives, it is to me effectively no different than my other annual subscriptions.
I’m with @beatrixwillius. I will not buy subscription software. I just won’t. I have paid for several great software packages (eg. GraphicConverter for Mac or Ka-Block! on iPhone). That, and only that, is how I will pay for software.
Same for cars — I will never subscribe to any in-car “feature” that is only offered as a subscription. That’s just a horrible idea and any car manufacturer who wants to forcefully drive me away from their brand, go ahead and do this.
I will however gladly pay for newspapers (eg. WSJ) or quality online reading (eg. a local online newspaper or TidBITS). I also pay per view when it comes to TV shows or movies — provided they can be purchased individually and outside of subscription-only streaming services. I don’t do any of those — too much wasted time and money IMHO.
The remainder of my subscriptions are hosting-related (my own web and mail server).
This comes at a good time for me. As I should receive my last credit card bill covering 2025 in the next few days, I will take the opportunity to audit my 2025 expenses. However, to answer the poll questions, I’ll need to break down several of the categories I use to itemize the payments and rebates associated with specific subscriptions. I need to use the annual numbers, since many of the subscriptions are on an annual basis (so the reported result for question 2 will be 1/12th of the numbers that are meaningful to me).
I’ll probably be able to answer the poll in a week or so.
I don’t think so. Even if it’s a guaranteed annual expense, the fact that you have to make the decision each year is key.
One aspect of subscriptions I plan to write about is the difference in what subscribers receive, as suggested by @bva. Some of the types include:
Access (permissions-based access to an app or service)
Maintenance/upgrades (only receive changes if you subscribe)
Issuance (receive new content while subscribing)
Usage (benefit based on consumption, as with cloud storage)
Insurance (reduced exposure to high-impact events)
Convenience (bundles to reduce cost or increase convenience)
Software generally uses an access model (where you lose access to the app as soon as you stop paying) or a maintenance model (where you lose upgrades, so the software slowly degrades over time).
You have a little while, since this article will run in TidBITS on Monday, January 26, and then I’ll be writing up the results for Monday, February 2. So if you can get your numbers in by the end of January, they’ll be counted.
In general I agree…don’t like subscriptions. However…for some things there’s no real way around it.
1Password for instance…if I ever upgrade to v8 I will have to pay for the sub. However…replacement with another app isn’t in the cards as there are zero options that provide all the capabilities it provides.
Lightroom/Photoshop. Again…while there are options but just a couple that are as fully featured and us photographers would end up buying the upgrade every year anyway. Photos doesn’t cut it for dedicated photographers who might shoot 30,000 photos or more in a week’s trip. And since Adobe has the majority of the market (60-70% according to ChatGPT) switching to something else is going to cost more than the annual sub and few of us are willing to undergo the hassle of moving everything over to something new, purchasing new plugins, and relearning all of our post processing workflows.
I’m sure there are others but none that I have.
Fortunately…both of those are pretty cheap subs in the great scheme of things. And while I don’t like them…I can appreciate that from the developer’s point of view they need an ongoing, steady revenue stream in order to pay and retain their staff.
So much misplaced angst, in my opinion. Clearly you shouldn’t pay for software you no longer use, just as you should cancel magazines you don’t read. But monthly licensing fees (aka subscriptions) are not evil.
Sorry, I’ll have to cut this short. It’s time for me to pay the utility company for my subscription to electricity, and the landlord says my apartment subscription is due too.
Mostly video streaming. We have a lot of channels (HBO, Netflix, Paramount, Starz, Apple, Amazon Prime, Disney and Hulu, plus a few free ones), but I don’t consider it excessive because we don’t subscribe to cable/satellite or any other live-TV service.
I didn’t include the Disney bundle (Disney, Hulu and an unused ESPN subscription), because it’s a free perk from my cell phone data plan and there really isn’t a good way to tease out the incremental cost.
Aside from that, we pay for iCloud+ storage and Microsoft 365. And that’s it. I much prefer either free stuff or one-time purchases.
What about “voluntary” subscriptions? e.g. I have a long-standing perpetual licence for VueScan that the developers continue to support indefinitely. However, I show my gratitude by sending an annual donation.
Only if it’s something that you don’t decide about every year but just allow to happen. If you have to take affirmative action every year, it’s not a subscription.
If you’re paying for it, yes. If it’s a trial that you’re planning to cancel before you’re billed, no.
I don’t think so, since tax rates vary. But it doesn’t matter too much either way.
A long time ago, I worked for Adobe. The only way I could afford Photoshop or InDesign (much less both) was via the employee discount. When Adobe moved to a subscription model, suddenly I could afford the whole suite, always at the latest released version. I was (and am) in heaven. And don’t tell me that I should save the money I’d pay on subscriptions to pay the full price for some future version: my software would be ancient and obsolete before I accumulated enough.
And as for small developers, I don’t want to see them having to continually grow their customer base just to stay in business. I want them to have a steady income stream, and I’m happy to contribute.
I’ve got no quarrel with those whose opinion differs. What I can’t understand is the fervor of so many, who seem to put the subscription model on the same moral plane as graft, extortion, or the operation of an abusive nursing home. Have some perspective, please. Make your choice, but don’t expect all of us to gravely nod and salute your righteous stand against the forces of…something.
I think this is a value question, meaning is this software/service worth the cost that I am paying. I tend to ask, do I really need this software/service at renewal time & then back that up with how many times do I use it & what is it saving me or making my life better.
Subscriptions can just add up, without users noticing, one of my biggest issues has been with software subscriptions model is the loss of features over time or worse new features that I’ll never will use that get in my way.
I agree it’s not that bad. I think the biggest problem people have is the abrupt change from purchase to subscription, not being given the option of one-time licenses, and the way some subscriptions terminate your ability to run the existing software and/or even block from opening read-only versions of your old documents once you stop paying for the subscription.
For example, I love the way the Xojo development software purchase plan works: while your license is current (you can buy one- or two-year licenses) you get free updates as they are release (several times per year). If you stop paying, you can continue to use the last version that was released during your active license. The software may stop working with new operating systems down the road, but you can, if you want, use the old version for years.
Contrast that with Adobe: if I stop paying I cannot even open my existing documents to look at them or even print them. That’s harsh. Making them read-only would be more fair. Being able to run old versions of the suite would be even nicer, especially for hobbyists who don’t need the latest features.
I don’t like Adobe’s policy, but I wouldn’t put it up there with mafia extortion. (Worst case, I could always subscribe for one month to finish a project, open/convert old documents, export to PDF or another format, etc.)
Wow, 17 subscriptions for 23 services (i.e. per Adam’s Q1 guidelines). I had no idea it was that many. That said, I don’t see any upcoming cancellations on the list, other than one which is a special rate—we sometimes add on a streaming subscription at a special rate to blast through desired content, then cancel.
Have some perspective, please. Make your choice, but don’t expect all of us to gravely nod and salute your righteous stand against the forces of…something.