How to find all your subscriptions
Download a bank or card statement as CSV or Excel and choose it above: the subscription finder lists every payment that comes back at a steady rhythm, with its amount, how often it is taken, what it costs over a year, when it was last paid and when the next one is due. Streaming services, apps, gym memberships, phone plans and cloud storage are easy to sign up for and easy to forget, and a statement holds the whole list among hundreds of other lines.
How to find recurring charges on a bank statement
Statement descriptions change from month to month: card numbers, dates, store numbers and reference codes are added to the merchant's name. The finder strips those parts, so "NETFLIX.COM 866-579-7172 CA" and "PAYPAL *SPOTIFY 4029357733" become Netflix and Spotify. It then groups payments to the same merchant with similar amounts, within about 20%, and measures the gaps between them. Gaps of about a week, two weeks, a month, three months or a year count as regular. A price rise stays in the same group, and the list shows the old price next to the new one.
Transfers to your own savings and cash withdrawals are left out. Rent and bills do appear, because they are regular payments too; the yearly total shows everything that leaves the account on a schedule.
Why a subscription can be missing
- Use at least three months of transactions. Yearly renewals only show in a statement that covers more than a year.
- Check every account and card you pay subscriptions from, one file at a time.
- Payments through an app store often appear under the store's name rather than the service's.
How to stop recurring payments
Cancel in the service's own account settings first. In the UK, the Financial Conduct Authority's guidance on recurring card payments says you can also ask your card issuer to cancel one, and the issuer must stop the payments even if you have not contacted the business. Ask by the end of the business day before the next payment is due, or you can still be charged.
A free subscription finder with no bank login
Most subscription tracker apps ask you to connect your bank. This page needs no online banking login. It only needs a statement file you download yourself, and it reads that file in your browser. The statement never leaves your device, nothing is stored, and the page sends only tiny counters with an event name. How to check this yourself.
To sort all your spending, not just regular payments, use the student budget summary, and to move transactions into finance software use the CSV to QIF and OFX converter.