What a monthly subscription really costs over a year

Why the annual figure matters

$9.99 a month reads as small. $119.88 a year reads as a purchase. Nothing has changed except the unit — but the second number is the one you would compare against other things you might buy, and it is the one that decides whether the subscription is worth keeping.

This is not a trick played on anyone. It is simply that monthly pricing is the industry standard, and twelve months is not a period most people add up in their heads.

Monthly prices, converted

Small subscriptions add up

The effect compounds across a list. Six subscriptions under $10 a month each — the sort nobody bothers to cancel — come to somewhere between $215 and $719 a year depending on where in that range they sit.

Going the other way

The conversion is just as useful in reverse. An annual plan advertised at $149 is $12.42 a month, which is the number to compare against the $14.99 monthly plan sitting next to it.

The figure that matters is your own

A table can convert one price. What it cannot do is add up the particular set of subscriptions you happen to have, which is where the number people find surprising actually comes from.