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Subscription audit calculator: what do your subscriptions really cost? Form SA-9

Guess what you pay each month, then list every subscription on one slip of paper. The ledger converts every billing cycle to the same scale, posts your true monthly and yearly totals below the tear line, and stamps the ones you haven’t touched in 30 days with CANCEL? — with the exact dollars you’d get back per year.

Tool № 9 · Sunday, September 27, 2026 · free, always

The average guess is $86. The average bill is $219.

Input slip · Form SA-9

First, the guess — then the ledger. List every subscription once and the page posts your true monthly and yearly totals, plus the cancel list, below the tear line. Everything stays in your browser; nothing is sent anywhere.

    Posted entry · Form SA-9-R

    Estimates, not financial advice. This page converts the billing cycles you enter to one scale and totals them. It doesn’t check your bank statements, doesn’t cancel anything for you, and isn’t financial advice. Cancel inside each service itself; the ledger just shows you the number.

    Common audits, pre-filled Form SA-9

    The usual suspects: each one opens the audit with a scenario already entered —

    How the audit works Form SA-9

    Every row is one subscription: a name, a price, and how often it charges. The ledger multiplies each one out to a full year — weekly × 52, monthly × 12, quarterly × 4, yearly × 1 — then divides by 12 for the true monthly number. A $15 monthly charge doesn’t feel like much; $180 a year in one line does.

    The guess line exists because of a real, measured phenomenon: in survey after survey, Americans guess they spend around $86 a month on subscriptions while the itemized total comes back near $219. Annual plans that auto-renew once a year, bundled subscriptions hiding inside phone plans, and free trials that quietly converted all feel like nothing most of the month.

    The cancel list is the point of the exercise. Anything you haven’t used in the last 30 days gets stamped CANCEL? and summed: that’s not a lecture, it’s a number — the dollars per year you keep by opening four cancel pages. The page keeps your ledger in your browser (localStorage) so next month’s audit takes two minutes.

    Common questions Form SA-9

    How much does the average person spend on subscriptions?

    Surveys put it at $219 to $273 a month in 2026 — roughly $2,628 to $3,276 a year. C+R Research found $219/month, Bango $237, Empower $273, and the SubscriptionShame Q1 2026 report $273. The exact figure moves by survey, but every credible source has it climbing.

    How do I find subscriptions I forgot about?

    Check three places: card and bank statements for the last 3 months (catches monthly charges), your app-store subscription list (catches free trials that converted), and your phone carrier and credit-card perk pages (catches bundled services you never signed up for separately). 42% of U.S. adults are paying for at least one subscription they’ve forgotten about.

    How do I cancel a subscription?

    Inside the service itself — its website or app, under account or billing settings. Canceling never happens through this page; it only totals the numbers. Cancel a few days before the renewal date, screenshot the confirmation, and check the next statement to make sure the charge stopped.

    Do free trials really trap people?

    They convert: the free trial you meant to cancel is the most common “forgotten” subscription. The defense is a calendar reminder on the trial’s end date minus two days, or a one-line entry on this page’s cancel list with the charge date in the name field.

    Should I count annual plans in my monthly total?

    Yes — that’s where the guess-vs-reality gap lives. A $139/year plan feels free eleven months of the year and then renews in one hit. Dividing every cycle by 12 is the whole trick this page is doing.

    Is this financial advice?

    No. It’s arithmetic on numbers you type in: it doesn’t check your statements, cancel anything, or recommend what to keep. If money is genuinely tight, a nonprofit credit counselor beats a calculator.

    Also in the ledger Form SA-9