Do You Use It? Audit Your Subscriptions

Probably an edge case, but I also pay monthly for a postal mailing service as I am temporarily overseas. $15/mo unless they do a lot of scanning.

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.

Almost all my subscriptions are business related. Hosting, backup, software.

I would not buy subscription software ever.

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.

I pay for Apple Match which isn’t streaming but allows me to access my music on all devices.

Backblaze, Dashlane, and a video streamer (MHz) are the highest costs for me.

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.

Now this is already a task in my todos I’ve been avoiding…

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.

Will be interesting to see what we’re paying for subscriptions, though we regularly review and set cancellation reminders.

I’m assuming we should include special deals that we intend to cancel before the special price ends (e.g. 3-month Black Friday sales)

I might have missed it, but how about tax? I’m assuming that it should be included?

I’m up here in Canada. Our subscriptions do tend to be higher due to exchange rate. I’ll translate to USD.

Your situation is like the one that Adam cited where the lowest cost Netfix subscription is included in certain cell phone plans.

The regular price of the Disney+/Hulu bundle is $12.99 with ads and $19.99 without ads..

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.

I’m generally pro-subscription.

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.

For my purposes, there is no meaningful difference between an Adobe Creative Cloud Photography plan, a NYT full access subscription or a season’s pass for skiing. They are all entertainment. If I had season’s tickets to a professional team, that would also go in the same category. I know this was just about paid subscriptions, but it interesting as there are some physical objects that come with a ‘subscription’. That is true for the Garmin bike and running computers. It is also true for most pieces of Apple hardware.

I used the final perpetual versions of Lightroom and Photoshop for many years until I recently upgraded my hardware/macOS and the old 32-bit versions would not run. I now have an Adobe CC subscription at the now-current price of $20/month. I only wish I had started just a few months earlier and locked in the $10/month subscription. But I need Adobe CC. I’ve tried the rest but they don’t do what I need.

Anyway, looking at my subscriptions

• Internet (mail, domains, hosting)
• Streaming (Apple TV+, Pandora)
• Adobe CC
• Newspaper (print edition; Support Your Local Newspaper!)

Largest subscription expense is Wasabi cloud storage, I’m up to $30/month.

I counted my HP Instant Ink subscription in “Other”.

I didn’t count my Spectrum TV channels, but maybe I should have, because paying for HBO, Showtime, and Starz is what gets me HBO Max, Paramount+, and Starz streaming channels, without ads.

Changing software to a subscription model means the developers don’t have a reason to make the program better. They can just sit back and let the money roll in, especially when the subscription is such that if you stop paying, the software no longer works.

And I don’t buy the argument that they need the income stream to pay for the development. If that’s true then how do so many other industries survive? Mazda doesn’t get income until someone decides to buy a new car, which is years apart, but they are still able to develop new models. I didn’t have to pay a monthly subscription for my washer, or TV, or even the iMac I’m typing this on, and yet all these company are able to keep coming out with new product versions.

I’ll give you that a subscription makes sense when the company has to provide infrastructure for the services you use, like a streaming service. But, they even abuse that: create a “service” whose only purpose is to give an excuse for subscription pricing.

I’ve never found subscription software to be a good value. Every time I’ve had a choice between a subscription-licensed software product and one with a more traditional model, even factoring in the price of having to buy future versions as they appear, the more traditional pricing comes out cheaper in the long run. And over the years, I’ve kept using many a purchased application that has outlived its expiration date and just kept running, at no additional cost.

I have no problem with subscribing to services in general when I can see the ongoing value. I don’t begrudge businesses their sales model. And some subscriptions, like the Creative Suite, are simply a necessity for people in certain industries. But at least for the software I use, I’ve never personally had a subscription pencil out.

@ace, Huge Kudos! for taking on the umpteen-faceted-convolusion that is subscriptions!

Almost all my subscriptions are business related. Hosting, backup, software.

I would not buy subscription software ever.

I use your excellent app Mail Archiver X, but I have counted the cost of regular updates as “subscription” in the poll, because I personally wouldn’t dream of continuing to use out of date versions when a new one exists.
I completely accept that I can use old versions if I stop paying, so it is not a subscription… but for me it is a regular cost. An excellent model.
Perhaps I am distorting the poll results.

And I don’t buy the argument that they need the income stream to pay for the development. If that’s true then how do so many other industries survive? Mazda doesn’t get income until someone decides to buy a new car, which is years apart, but they are still able to develop new models. I didn’t have to pay a monthly subscription for my washer, or TV, or even the iMac I’m typing this on, and yet all these company are able to keep coming out with new product versions

Because cars, TVs and washers wear out and have to be replaced. Computers do a combo of wearing out and becoming obsolete. And there is a spare parts industry.
Manufacturers of hardware are guaranteed replacement business.
This is somewhat over simplified but I don’t buy your analogy.

If they do this they will be overtaken by their competitors, and I will switch.

You seem to have an odd utility company. I pay mine for the electricity and gas I have already used to heat water and cook food. And when I stop paying them, the hot water and food I had prepared last month before doesn’t magically disappear or start tasting rotten.

Think it’s difficult to include items such as Netflix & Apple TV in the same “subscription” category as applications & software, such as 1Password, Backblaze, & Dropbox. To me, those are completely different types of subscriptions. On a monthly basis, my costs are a bit high but that’s due to entertainment (Netflix, Apple TV, Hulu). My monthly costs in the productivity area (Backblaze, iCloud, 1Password, TidBits, etc) are pretty low.

I tend to be very organized (possibly over-organized) & all subscription payment due dates (monthly or annually) are noted on my calendar so it’s readily apparent to me when it’s time to “renew” or the monthly/annual payment is due.

Whenever I sign up for something or start a subscription, it gets added to my calendar, w/the start date, the renewal date, & the amount paid.

If that’s the way it works out, then that’s great. But circumstances are different for different people.

Take, for example, Microsoft Office. Using Microsoft’s web-site pricing:

• Subscriptions:
  • Office 365 Personal (1 user, 5 devices): $100/yr ($8.33/mo)
  • Office 365 Family (6 users, 5 devices each): $130/yr ($10.83/mo)
• Office Home 2024: (1 computer): $150 (perpetual)

Non-subscription releases come out about every three years, so the perpetual license is effectively $50/yr, if you want to keep it up to date.

So for one user on one computer, the perpetual license is definitely cheaper. And with two computers, it’s a break-even with the 365-personal subscription. But with more computers, the math shifts the other way.

In my home, there are two users and four computers. With perpetual licenses, we’d be spending $600 every three years ($200/yr), but a 365 family subscription is $130 per year - a 35% discount

And this is MSRP. There are often discounts. The last time I renewed, I paid $130 for a 15-month subscription ($8.67/mo) from Costco. (Sadly, there’s no discount right now.)

Now that we’re thinking about the ongoing financial aspects of subscriptions, I’ll add that a one-time cost of, say, $120 is actually higher than $10/month over 12 months. And the longer the subscription price is locked in, the better it is to subscribe.

Why? Because of the time value of money. The actual amount will vary depending on interest rates (higher interest rates will make the subscription more attractive while lower interest rates will drive the total subscription cost closer to the purchase cost) but the cost of each future month, today, is lower than $10.

[yes, accounting and finance fans, I’m talking about net present value here]

But subscription prices are not fixed, they can and do rise at any time. One time cost locks in the lower price.

I didn’t include my broadband. However, I’m at the distal end of six miles of optical fiber strung along rural, tree-lined roads in a part of the world prone to hurricanes. So I also pay $5/month to have standby satellite internet. I rely on internet for my phone service (no cell signal) and email (on-site server) so I’m otherwise really cut off when a tree falls across the road. Still, it somehow feels to me as though the backup internet falls outside the category of “unavoidable monthly connectivity costs” so I’ve included it as a subscription.

Yes. That’s why the known period of the fixed subscription price is important.

I’ll note also that subscriptions are good for dropping and out of use of, eg, software. I pay for Flighty, the travel app, but only on months where I have a fair bit of travel. So maybe 2-3 out of 6? I’m on the $10/month plan, so $20-$30 / year. A lifetime purchase is $299, which means it would take 10 years for that be cheaper than my current approach.

This works well for streaming services, too. We drop off Apple TV and HBO Max when we’ve finished the shows we want and don’t jump back on until something new arrives.

This is how we been driving our cost down with steaming services cost since 2022.

Office vs 365 was definitely one of the things I had in mind.

Office has a five-year support cycle. All I personally need is occasional access to a single copy; Apple’s Numbers is more than adequate for most of my needs. So I paid $150 for 5 years of patches, or $30/year, $2.50/month. The equivalent 365 subscription (without Copilot) is $70 per year.

I could technically have bought a second license and still come out ahead.

Of course, this way I don’t get new features, but so far as I’m concerned, Office was feature-complete 15 years ago. And I don’t get access to Copilot AI, but that service is so hamfistedly integrated that I’d rather skip it. And I can’t use the other cloud services, either…but again, I don’t place any value at all on them, not even “nice to have.”

So I guess I am glad that Microsoft has chosen to offer such a range of licensing models. Even if they are bewildering.

… Only if you purchased it when it was first released. If you purchase after it’s been out for a year or two, that isn’t going to move the date when support ends.

If you buy on the release date, and upgrade at the end of support, you will end up buying your upgrade two years into that product’s cycle and will only have three years of support remaining. So in the long term, perpetual licenses are still only good for three years of patches, assuming you don’t keep using it after the end of support.

That having been said, I have absolutely no problem using an unsupported version, as long as you only use it with your own documents and don’t use any web/cloud services. Malware doesn’t spontaneously form ^{[citation needed]}, so you should be perfectly safe if you only work with your own documents and don’t open documents that come from untrusted sources.

Yeah, I skipped 2021 entirely, and held out for 2024 for that reason.

Since you can license MS365 on a monthly plan, it may well make sense to do that for a few months if a you need a current version and the next “perpetual” release is right around the corner, and then transfer to that release train.

Thought I’d add this for the good of the group.

Just learned of this tool to help manage streaming subscriptions. https://streamwolf.com/

From most recent newsletter at [email protected]:

“If you want to avoid cable-like prices for streaming TV, the best way is to aggressively cycle through different subscriptions. A new app called StreamWolf makes that process simpler.

StreamWolf provides an overview of all your streaming subscriptions, shows you the total cost, and lets you cancel (or reactivate) individual services with just a button tap. It also offers some watchlist features so you can plan what to pay for at any given time.

The app is still a work in progress, but it shows promise and offers some utility even in its early stages. It’s the kind of service that streaming platforms like Roku and Fire TV ought to provide themselves, but won’t.”

These are the times we live in…now we need to pay for a subscription to manage our subscriptions!
;-)

Yep. While I don’t really like subs…I understand the revenue stream they provide for devs. My main one is the Adobe photography plan…and at 130 a year it’s cheaper than annual upgrade price anyway…and theirs is a reason Adobe dominates the photo post processing. Griping about this is an exercise in futility IMO.

Except in Adobe’s case at least that is simply incorrect. Lightroom and Photoshop continue to get updates and increased capabilities…and even as an advanced amateur photographer I easily see the benefits.

IMO…the argument against subs is a solution in search of a problem.

I just joined Apple ONE and Adobe Lightroom, but have had Netflix, Amazon Prime, Costco, OPB Passport, Oregon Capitol Chronicle, and Mary Geddry.

I used to think this too, but I’ve observed that some developers (Ulysses, in particular) seem to constantly add minor (and ill-designed, again, Ulysses) features so they can gain attention and make subscribers feel like they’re getting value.

Even though the web page says to try it for free, the iOS app is currently free with no in-app purchases.

Quick run of the numbers makes plain to me what I suspected: most of my costs are for accessibility-related software (screen reader, Aira, Sero …) most of which is simply not likely ever to feature in most people’s subscriptions. I suspect this makes me an outlier and you’re not interested in these costs, even when they are in fact voluntary and paid through Apple’s storefront.

Just shy of 3k a year. I’ll have to see what I can shave off but a lot of it is used. Retirement looming (whatever that means, whole other discussion…) but definitely looking at cutting some of this back.

A guaranteed way to lose me as a customer is to go subscription. 1Password lost me as a customer when their greed implemented a subscription only policy. Even my local newspaper lost me as a subscriber when I asked to renew from a print subscription to a digital one. They would not let me pay the annual subscription via check or cash demanding I put a credit/debit card on file. I was willing to use PayPal, but they refused (plus their representative was a very sarcastic a-hole).

I do subscribe to the online edition of the newspaper where I lived from 1989 to 2021.

Also, a monthly periodical I subscribed to is going from print to digital, so I’m not renewing my 40+ year subscription.

All else being equal, I prefer permanent licenses over subscriptions. At a bare minimum, with subscription software, you should have the ability to open, view, and print existing documents after a subscription expires. All that said, the only question that really matters to me is “Does the value justify the cost?” If a subscription delivers fair value, then I have no problem with it. Of course, it is important to monitor one’s list of subscriptions.

An outlier, perhaps, but absolutely worth contributing your data to the poll!

Sorry, but the instructions are way too complicated. I’ll just mention that I subscribe to Apple Music and iCloud+ (2 TB) and the multi-device AppleCare+ to cover my iPhone, MBP, and iPad Pro. I do not subscribe to AppleTV or other paid-for Apple services. I subscribe to Netflix, but no other streaming service. I subscribe to Amazon Prime. No cable. But I have home fiber network service. And iPhone cellular service of course. I have a legacy G Suite account and recently added 1 TB of Google Cloud for just $4/month. And I subscribe monthly to Talkatone for a U.S. VoIP number. I guess this and that add up. But I am not following all the very detailed rules of what to include and what to exclude so it’s hard to give a total.

I did not include my largest subscription cost, which is Spectrum internet service because I also use that for business. Same with my phone, also mixed use. Since I work freelance, most of my costs are mixed. I’ve tried to break out the subs that are not tied primarily to business.

I know one subscription I will never cancel duhhhh TidBits!! The subscription that keeps on giving!! Thanks to a great leader, Adam, and to so may wise and giving people. You folks have saved my bacon more times that I can count and I am so grateful. Thank you all.

My subscription is AppleCare One.

My credit card seems to be broken once a year or so, which is a great way to see what I’m subscribed to. I send Apple and TidBits money. The first rather unhappily, but, I’m not as good at backing up as I should be, the second very happily, as it is always interesting, even tho often beyond me, or, at least, not applicable.

My most expensive subscription (which I included in my survey response) is $82.33 per month with tax for the daily local newspaper. That’s an increase of $30 from a year ago. I also pay $99.99 per year for Parallels so I can run a High Sierra virtual machine on my Intel iMac to use my critical 32-bit SuperCard app.

This is why I dropped 1 Password, the subscription cost over a stand alone purchase obviously enhanced revenue NOT value.

Or $4.17/mo/device. Office 365 using your data is $1.67/mo/device for Personal and $0.36/mo/device for Family.

That said, my cost is $0.00/mo/device because I use LibreOffice!

An interesting hybrid model for software licensing is the subscription with perpetual unlock license used by Agenda (Get All Features - How To - Agenda Community) and another version used by Keepassium (What is rent-to-own (perpetual fallback) license? | KeePassium). Essentially, everyone gets updates and bug fixes, and when you subscribe, you get any “premium” features released during (or before) your subscription period. If you stop subscribing, you get bug fixes/updates but not any new features. I like that model because it gives me an incentive to subscribe to software I use heavily and where I would benefit from new premium features, but I have the comfort of knowing I can fall back to a perpetual license for the existing features if I ever stop subscribing.

I have monitored my TV Shows-Movies streaming subscriptions for years. Last year I spent $41 per month, not including internet access. I don’t have cable. I get ordinary TV over-the-air. I’m not responding to your poll because I don’t have a fixed list of services I subscribe to every month. I’ll do Netflix one month and Amazon Prime the next, then ESPN, then HBO, etc. I subscribe to services that have something I specifically want to watch, never to simply have a large amount of stuff available. I spent less than $85 per month on internet + TV-Movie streaming services last year. I always had much more TV available than I had time to watch.

I do have subscriptions that don’t fall in the TV-Movies category. Things like magazines, the Berlin Philharmonic’s Digital Concert Hall, and Met Opera on Demand. They are more complicated to categorize. I don’t much watch Met Operas, but think of my subscription (in part) as a contribution to the arts.

My monthly expenses are so much less than everyone I talk to that it’s not worth worrying about. I think my sister spends over $200 a month on cable. I think of that as largely a waste, and she only uses a small fraction of what she pays for. She has convinced herself that she has to have access to every sports event. I, on the other hand, see the sports I want to see because I pick up services that broadcast them on a month to month basis and without paying for things I’m not watching.

Very nice timing. I was doing this as part of end-of-year cleanup.

We typically do not subscribe to more than one video service. We’ll get Netflix use it a bit then change to Apple, etc. It is rare we subscribe to more than one video service at a time.

We also have cable TV and internet subscriptions I’ve included in my replies.

I did not see news sources. We have three digital news subscriptions and one of those is also a hard copy newspaper delivered weekly.

Thanks for the poll.

I agree, the model used by Agenda takes into account our variable engagement with different software. I wish others used it.

Surprised to find myself at the high end here, despite not really doing streaming services for more than a month at a time each – in part because I subscribe to a postal Blu-Ray service (yes, it’s still a thing in the UK), which probably doesn’t really count here. And I’m counting in a couple of paperless magazine subscriptions (among which I suppose Marvel Unlimited qualifies). I find a subscription tracking app like Subscription Day is pretty essential these days.

There are some developers I appreciate so much I actively want to give them more money; Wotja is one app that for me is beyond price, though they do also very civilisedly offer an annual featuregrade option as an alternative. And I’m surprised not to have seen Setapp mentioned yet; an app like Cloud Outliner is so absurdly cheap as a one-time purchase but so central to my workflow that I use the Setapp version by preference just to throw the dev a little more change.

The question of how many apps in Setapp we actually use is a slightly tricky one, but I see I’ve favourited 48, which feels about right.

Only Strava I pay for personally out of all things mentioned. As I am interested in music I won’t have any streaming services. As I am not interested in movies I have no such streaming services either. All else is paid for by my company. Only yearly fees to two foreign bicycle clubs. That’s it I think. I would much rather pay for RidewithGPS than Strava as they are more valuable, but can do all for free there that I need.

Finally bit the bullet and dropped Adobe … using Pixelmator took a LOT of getting used to, but I’m getting there. (I really, really, really miss automatic fill). Dreamweaver is tough, I’m running a legit CS3 on an old laptop and a legit CS5 under Crossover Office for when I just have something quick to do. CS5 and CS6 never really worked well, I think they peaked at CS3. (CC is almost identical to CS5-CS6.)

It ends up that I pay for MS Office, password linking, a health app on and off (snoring detection), and ONE streaming system at a time, right now PBS (Passport?). I have music, purchases make a lot more economic sense for someone who doesn’t like programmed/cloned “music.” And then there’s $1/month for iCloud, well worth it, and the oddballs like AP News (replacing Reuters when Reuters got cowardly, replacing the Washington Post when they fired the reporters). Then two email services.

I understand subscriptions for things like newspapers but it’s weird to pay for software that way. I don’t use the online extras (save for iCloud and password) but I still have to pay for them.

The big subscription for me is Ancestry, which costs about $50 a month, which is both for the genetic testing and their extensive data base. It’s interesting - both my wife and I have found previously unknown relatives. But they have polluted their data base with poorly screened AI garbage that made my sister abandon it, and it’s getting hard to justify the expense.

Quicken is a justifiable subscription. We need it to keep track of our finances and taxes. I get annoyed with it from time to time, but I don’t see anything comparable for the price. I use Moneydance as treasurer of a very small nonprofit, which does not require a subscription, but it would be totally inadequate for my taxes, which include retirement income, investments, a rental property, and my writing business. By the way, retirement income can be complex if you have your own IRA.

I use MS Office, which I buy and use as long as it works. All I need is Word. I have no use for MS 365.

To me, the worst case for subscriptions is companies that keep updating their software just to have something new to charge for. For me, that means Zoom which keeps changing so much it has destroyed the wonderfully clean interface that made it a success in the first place.

One of the advantages of subscriptions that I hadn’t really thought through until now is that by paying regularly, you’re the customer rather than the product. Which should mean no ads, etc.

(Also I’m flashing back to the 70s & 80s and all the subs then – magazines, newspapers, book of the month club, Columbia House Music club (get those letters back before the deadline or get an unwanted book/tape/CD!), milk, furniture & TVs (hello, Rent a Center!), etc.)

I have never seen an icon better than the one for Streamwolf. It’s a lesson for Apple’s liquid glass fail.

Like others - this comes at a good moment. I had just completed my 2025 spend analysis and had all my transactions across all cards and bank accounts in one place - but I hadn’t had a chance yet to dig into all my subscriptions.

@ace your suggestion to use ChatGPT was a good one. I took a sanitized version of my transaction list (no account numbers or anything - just vendors, amounts, descriptions) and fed it to ChatGPT and pointed it at this article and asked it to summarize things for me in context of your poll. After clarifying a few things - and adding a few things that weren’t in the transaction list (some of the Apple managed subscriptions) I had answers for your poll and a good idea of what my subscriptions look like.

I had already cancelled a bunch of subs from my initial analysis - but this uncovered a couple more I could get rid of (because I don’t use them or they are provided by my work so I don’t have to pay out of pocket for them). I also realized that I didn’t have an annual TidBits subscription - so I added that back into the mix, too!

Thanks for all you do!

PS - My intro to the internet was your first edition Internet StarterKit for Mac. If I recall correctly it included the World Wide Web as a “and there is new upcoming thing called the web, but it’s still pretty new so we’ll see what it turns out to be” - which is just so crazy to think about how much things have changed.

The only recurring digital-related subscription I have is my Frontier.com autopayment each month for fiber and VOIP phone service. Not really interested in any other “subscriptions”.

For a while, I had also signed up for YouTubeTV via Frontier’s autopay/autocollection, but I was paying almost $75 a month and wasn’t using it. So I discontinued the service. I only turn on the tv once a weekday (to watch Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune, heh), and then I turn it back off. It never gets used over the weekend.

I bought some 1x2 pine and wire, along with a 75/300ohm transformer, and built my own “hillbilly” tv antenna, which I mounted on an old microphone stand so I can raise it up and down.

Each day before 7pm, I set up the antenna.
Then I put on the shows, and at 8 lower it down and move it out of the way.
This routine saves me about $900 (or more) a year.
What works… works.

Yes! The Web existed in 1993, but there was only MacWWW, which was pretty weak, and NCSA Mosaic, which I got my hands on for a very brief time before the book went to press in September of that year. Talk about a universe far, far away…

Affinity V3 is my choice, free. Before that Affinity Apps… very inexpensive. And I owe them forever. Adobe hasn’t been on my desktop for over 8years now.

Category: Other
I collect Take Control Books PDFs and subscribe to Joe’s Take Control Premium offering.

How about a way to find out how many subscriptions I actually have?

Seriously, I have NO IDEA how many I have. I completely lost track. Everything I do Mac-wise is both business and personal, so there’s no real way to separate.

I kind of hate the idea of subscriptions, but the old shareware model has all but disappeared and commercial developers see dollar signs everywhere.So, subscribing is difficult to avoid, especially if you’re selective about the software you use or things you want to watch, in terms of video streaming.

I wish I read the comments before doing the survey. I included 7 subscriptions, but forgot Netflix, Prime, BritBox, my internet service, my cable service.

Regarding the subscription model, I support the idea but the cost is stupid. When most companies went to a subscription model, one year cost the same as buying the non-subscription version. I feel that the cost to subscribe should be 25% to 50% of the non-sub version.

I’m a little surprised to now compare the top 5 categories and the amount spent question.

I had the impression that streaming and online storage were fairly expensive, so to see 25% are spending $50-99 is surprising. But then, $50-149 is 45% of responses so maybe that’s about right.

Depends on what you’re subscribing to. In my case:

• $3/mo - iCloud+ 200 GB storage
• $8.25/mo - Apple TV+ ($99/yr)
• $10/mo - Disney/Hulu bundle
  • In reality, we have the Disney/Hulu/ESPN bundle, which costs $36/mo, but it’s paid for as a free perk on my mobile phone contract, and we never use ESPN, so I’m listing only the non-ESPN a-la-carte price.
• $18.50 - HBO Max
• $18 - Netflix
• $13 - Paramount+
• $30 - Starz
• $9 - Amazon Prime (fraction of the larger price, which includes free shipping and music and other things)
  ======
  Total: $106.75 for streaming and $3 for storage.

But our Starz subscription is new. That wasn’t in the mix when I took the survey. Removing it brings the cost down to $76.75/mo.

Just an in-the-weeds comment about market research: I’d say the poll results are highly dependent on the pool of potential respondents and who responds so I don’t feel there is a “right” or “correct” level.

Specific to the current poll, I believe that TBT users represent a much narrower demographic than Apple users in general. Currency exchange rates and regional differences between all-in costs for subscriptions (for example, my city heavily taxes mobile phone service) also are a confounding factor.

Ok, thanks @Halfsmoke and @Shamino. Since I don’t do any streaming or online storage and found myself in the 50-99 bracket I was a bit surprised. Maybe I messed up the math, included some as annual costs that should have been monthly. Maybe it’s the internet and phone costs I was thinking of as generally 50+ per month in themselves but I think Mr. Engst said those were not included in the poll.

UK here… so in GB£ (all with the dreaded 20% VAT included, except Criterion, lol!):

main [£]:
• 1.79 – HP Instant Ink, 10pps/m [unused roll-over up to 30pp]
• 8.99 – iCloud+, 2TB storage
• 7.08 – Setapp, 2-Macs legacy plan, paid yrly (85.00/y)
• 1.76 – 1Password, paid yrly (21.11/y)

entertainment [£]:
• 1.83 – iTunes Match, paid yrly (21.99/y)
• 7.42 – Apple TV, paid yrly (89.00/y)
• 4.17 – ScreenCastsOnline, paid yrly (50.00/y)
• 12.99 – Netflix, HD/2screens [NB: not the 18.99 UHD/4screens plan!]
• 7.92 – Amazon Prime, paid yrly (95.00/y) [NB: no, I don’t pay the extra 3/m to remove sodding ads!]
• 7.99 – Mubi, paid yrly (95.88/y)
• 5.42 – BFI Player, paid yrly (65.00/y) [BFI Player Classics in the US]
• 6.50 – Criterion Channel, [via VPN to the US!] paid yrly (78.00/y)

= 73.86/m / 886.32/y

One thing I realise is I’m quite lazy so can’t be bothered to chop and change video subs all the time like others do.

Also, I remember when I’d go to Blockbuster and physically rent a few DVDs most weeks (as a film fan) and would easily spend ~£20 each time on 3 or 4 discs (~£80/mth!). So when I look at my streaming costs, it’s comparable in cost to what I spent then (but inflation means it’s cheaper, of course!), at the expense of not having everything ever made available to me a la carte like rental may have provided if they had the titles. But that’s impossible anyway if you want to stay non-pirate, as one could add another ten streaming services and still not have access to everything! Just too much content being made these days, due to digital production and distribution.

…oh, then there’s…cough…my Plex library of ‘obtained’ content.

Just ran across this app for tracking subscriptions. Might be interesting.

I have found this spreadsheet template immensely helpful, because it does all the math for you — including automatic conversion between annual/monthly.

Subscription Manager Template

There is even a YouTube tutorial.

Two interesting articles surrounding the streaming video subscription world: