Guide
Working out what a change would actually save
A saving is only real once it has a number on it. There are four kinds worth pricing, and none of them require anyone to tell you what to cancel.
Cancelling
The simplest to price and the hardest to decide. The saving is the full annual cost of the subscription — which is usually larger than people expect, because they have the monthly price in mind.
One streaming service
- Monthly price
- $17.99
- Annual cost
- $215.88
- Saving if cancelled
- $215.88
Downgrading
Often the more comfortable option: the same service, a smaller plan. The saving is the difference between the two prices, annualised.
Moving to a cheaper tier
- Current
- $17.99 a month
- Cheaper plan
- $10.99 a month
- Current annual cost
- $215.88
- New annual cost
- $131.88
- Difference
- $84.00 a year
Switching to annual billing
Yearly plans are usually priced below twelve monthly payments. The gap is worth knowing — but so is the fact that you are paying for a year in advance and committing to it.
Monthly against yearly
- Monthly plan
- $11.99
- Twelve months of it
- $143.88
- Annual plan
- $99.00
- Difference
- $44.88 (31%)
- Break-even
- about 9 months
SubTrack phrases this as a price difference, never as a recommendation. Flexibility has a value, and only you know what it is worth to you.
Removing an overlap
Where two services genuinely cover the same ground, dropping one returns its whole annual cost. The judgement about whether they overlap is yours: SubTrack will never call two subscriptions duplicates because they share a category.
Three music services, grouped by you
- Service A
- $10.99 a month
- Service B
- $9.99 a month
- Service C
- $8.99 a month
- Together
- $359.64 a year
- If the least expensive goes
- $107.88 back
Setting a target
A goal turns an open-ended review into a finishable task. Say you want to reduce recurring spending by $50 a month: that is $600 a year, and as you switch subscriptions off in What if, SubTrack shows how much of it you have found.
What SubTrack will not do
- Tell you a subscription is overpriced. It has no idea what things are worth to you.
- Invent a saving you did not describe. Every figure comes from a change you selected.
- Compare your spending to other people. There is no benchmark dataset behind this.
- Cancel anything. Applying a scenario updates your own record, nothing else.
Does applying a scenario cancel the subscription?
No. It updates your audit — marking the subscription cancelled in your own list, or moving it to the price you entered. Cancelling with the provider is something only you can do.
Can I undo a scenario?
Before applying, yes — clear it and nothing has changed. After applying, the record is updated, which is why it asks first. Save a project file beforehand if you want a copy of the old state.
Why does it not suggest what to cancel?
Because it would be guessing. SubTrack knows a price and a cycle. It does not know that the $4.99 one is how you speak to your family, or that the $60 one is a work expense.