Subscription Fatigue

Software
1

hey MPU,

I decided this week to try an idea of a ‘digital spring cleaning’ – more like evaluation.
The results… :face_vomiting: :nauseated_face: I went line by line through all my credit cards, receipts, renewals, etc. to find out how much I actually spend on subscriptions. Granted, there are many things that I pay annually…but took the $/12 to get a real monthly cost because those annual ones can be sneaky!

Streaming = $121/month
(Netflix, Hulu with HBO Max, Disney+ with Verizon, Crunchyroll, Prime Video with Amazon, YouTube Premium, Spotify)

Apple Services = $40/month
iCloud+ (2TB), Apple Arcade, AppleCare (iPhone/iPad Mini), AppleCare+ (Mac Mini)

Gaming = $13/month
PlayStation Plus, Nintendo Online (these are paid annually)

Other = $60/month
Costco Membership, Pest Control, Amazon Prime (I debated whether to count these 3 as subscriptions, because then why not add my utilities here…but that’s a different beast.

Software & Productivity = $325/month :nauseated_face:
These are mix of monthly or annuals. Shall we begin?
Microsoft 365, 1Password, IFTTT, Synology C2, Cloudways Server, Minno, Backblaze, ChatGPT, Claude, GPAComics, Cursor, DayOne, Drafts, GoodNotes, Qardio, Logos, Craft (personal and work), Notion (personal and work), Fantastical, Matter,

I have yet to add CLZ Comics, Movies, Books into this section, (just remembered them as I was writing)

How much does everyone else pay!??!

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2

My subscriptions are:

  • Apple Services, same as you.
  • Google Gemini Plus
  • Evernote (old account still grandfathered)
  • Feedly (convenient for reading feeds through ReadKit). Might switch to Inoreader, who knows.

And that’s about it. There’s also an additional layer of token costs from Fireworks.ai, Openrouter and whatnot that I’m paying on a pay-as-you-go basis but it’s around 20€/month. Considering going to Anthropic or OpenAI directly.

3

Damn the # of subs you have is insane!.

Streaming = $0 / month. I get my content on Youtube and other mediums.

Apple Services = $8/month - iCloud+ (2TB) - I get the $10 a month plan with iTunes 20% off gift card = $8 a month. I hate to pay this month but my family needs the space for photos/videos. Plus I have 500+ HideMyEmail addresses and my 13 cameras get 7 days of HKSV included.

*Gaming * = $0/month - I pay nothing and get my games from other sources.

Store Subcriptions = $7.67/mo - I use my parent’s costco membership and they benefit immensely by getting 2-300$ back from my purchases at Costco. The ~$7.67/mo is my Amazon account.

Software & Productivity = $7.40 a month. I only pay for 1Password Family & Inoreader.

This is how I got it down to $2.40/yr
a) 50% off for 3 years (my 3rd & final year just started!) for having moved to v8 from v7
b) $125 gift card for $100 back years ago
c) My membership renewed days before this recent price hike.
d) I started with 2 months free before the 3 years.

Inoreader - I pay $5 a month by having bought 5 years in advance on a deal (they stopped that now) and only buy from BF. In June 2028, I’ll reset back to full price. I may drop and just stick to Reeder Classic or try News Explorer 2 which I have for iOS & Mac licenses for.

VPN = $1.66 a month. I got NordVPN on Newegg special - $20 for 12 months. Bought 3 years so I am good for a while.

AI: $0/ month. I’ve had Perplexity free for 2 years so far. Ends in September 3, but I may get Claude or ChatGPT as I use it so damn much every day. I may try the free plans and see if that works for my needs though.

My total per month is $33.67 /month or $404 per year. Still feels like a lot, but boy do I get immense value out of all these. The only one I didn’t include is my gym membership that I pay 27 months in advance for $38.81/mo. I also had Ring sub for $100 a month, but I gave that up when it doubled to $200.

I fucking hate subs with a passion. I am very proud of myself for avoiding them like the plague.

In the future, I may drop 1Password and just go to Apple passwords, though it will be rough with the PC. Inoreader I may drop too as the devs are hostile to their users and I could make do with Reeder, but it won’t be as good of an experience. I could self host immich but honestly it’s not as good as iCloud. VPN is a must, iCloud+ 2TB too, Amazon for sure, and Costco I would pay for easily.

4

Best advice you will receive – do the same as tens of thousands of other… move to UpNote and never look back!

Feedly is fine, but Inoreader is better. Devs are user hostile. Their BF “deals” can only be purchased once every 2.5 years due to the way they structured it.

1 Like
5

@FrMichaelFanous : Vá, thats a LOT! Phuuu …
About $600 per month?! Of course it depends on if you can/want afford it. For me it would be far far too much.
Streaming: $0
Apple Services: $3 (?, well, the 200 GB thing) /month
Gaming: $0
Other: maybe $10 (?) /month
Software: around $30 /month

I only use SW/apps I really need, use and want. I do not play (e.g. Nintendo) and I do not watch Netflix, Disney … I even do not own a TV (just online streaming, TV channels, buying some movies via Apple). I reduced app subscriptions because - I did not really needed these apps or found good, cheaper, free alternatives. I try to reduce the costs as much as possible.

I think it is a good idea to do this ‘digital spring cleaning’, by starting with this evaluation. For me, it was always a good feeling to cancel a subscription, saving some money and thinking about an alternative. Like DayOne - I switched to Journal. 1Password - I switched to Bitwarden. ToDo or notes apps - I use Things and Apple Notes - thats enough for me. Once I used Fantastical (too expensive) - now I use BusyCal/BusyContacts. I use Obsidian for “clippings”.

I wonder how much time (beside money) you spend for Netflix, … and/ or gaming?

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6

You must be catching my aversion to subscriptions! :wink::slightly_smiling_face:

Personal Subscriptions:

  • AT&T (Internet, DirecTV, five mobile phones (we pay the mobile phone bill for our children): $286/month / $3,432/year
  • Apple One: $37.95/month / 455.40/year
  • Apple Creator Studio $125.99/year
  • Arq backup $60/year

Annual: $4,073.39

I try to keep subscriptions to a bare minimum, especially for apps and discretionary services. In today’s society, however, it is nearly impossible to avoid the cost of internet, mobile phones, and storage.

Paid by employer:
Office 365
AI (Claude and Gemini)

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I am also really trying to reduce, and I’m at the point where I cannot reduce costs more without it affecting the services my other family members enjoy.

For TV/Internet I have NowTV (74€ including sport), Netflix (€22), YT Premium (€14), Prime (€50/year), and Movistar Fibre/4x Mobile (€100) = €214/month

Software subs I personally pay for… Drafts (€1.70), Plane Finder (€1.90) = €3.60/month (after years of cutting back on personal subs)

Applecare (€20). Apple One (€35), iCloud (€10 for extra 2GB) and Creative Studio (€30/year) = €67.50/month

Annual: €3,421

My employer pays for Adobe Acrobat, Office365, PDF Expert (I prefer the interface to Acrobat!), Superhuman, Calendly and AI (Claude Pro + the API when needed, and ChatGPT)

8

@FrMichaelFanous You’ve always been the king of software expenses around here. I love reading it but I shouldn’t tell you to never change. :slight_smile:

We’re roughly clocked around $100/mo for personal software/media subscriptions that aren’t utilities. A lot of them are $25-100 annual expenses (Castro, a few publications, a game development toolkit, Costco, DEVONthink Pro 4, etc.) We have Apple’s family plan + 200GB extra storage.

I’m ambivalent except for the 200GB extra iCloud storage; that kills me and I really don’t want to hit 400GB total and have to bump up again. The family is good about curating their photos (we teach the principle that curating lets you enjoy more of them) but that only slows us down. Unfortunately, I’m in a middle state where I care a medium amount about it; too much to just delete/stop syncing photos, too little to set up alternative storage and do family change management.

9

I’ve been curating photos and backing them up via iDrive and a local external, and using FlickrPro (c. $80.00/year) as well as Google Photos (I have a GoogleOne account).

I really have found FlickrPro worth the money in that while uploading and organizing is a PITA, ease of sharing and privacy controls are worth it.

Also, it’s very easy for me to bulk download photos, though it’s sometimes a walk-away-and-wait process

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10

I’d add Phones, Broadband, and anything else which can be negotiated. If you don’t acknowledge it, you can’t change it.

My streaming costs are way below yours with Disney+ and Netflix. £20 a month

Apple, only iCloud storage and Apple Music £27

No Gaming

I subscribe to and pay for a couple of podcasts at £13 a month

My software is a fraction of what you pay with 1password, Drafts, Due, Backblaze, reMarkable Connect about £50

11

Not to judge @FrMichaelFanous, each to their own, but that seems like a lot of money.

Far more than I would pay for software, but I spend other money on my own things.

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12

Love this community! Just to be fair, if not for this community I would not have been exposed to some of these apps that I am paying for :rofl: :rofl: kidding.

I should probably add that we are a family of 5, different ages, etc. That’s the only reason why there are so many ‘streaming services’ and most of the family is a gaming family.

Software is a big problem for me, some items are ingrained, some are not. For me this year, GoodNotes might be on the chopping block until the day, Apple releases a true MacBook Pro/iPad experience. Its usage has gone drastically down for me. Matter is probably on the chopping block as well, it was my replacement for Pocket, but I haven’t had the chance to re-visit anything that I clipped/saved to Matter. Might be easier to just utilize DevonThink or Obsidian for that.

Craft and Notion are harder to break from…or maybe I just ask Claude to rebuild Notion for me personally and then cut the subscription haha

The rise of AI software is a worry that I pay for 3 of them and we are in the ‘beginning’ stages.

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13

Much, much less than that. But… I did spend >NZD$6000 on camera gear in the last 24 months.

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14

It’s the cost of MPU membership. :smiley:

You prompted me to review my list early.

Personal

  • iCloud - A$4.5 /mo
  • Google One - A$32.99 /mo
  • Craft Docs - A$7 /mo
  • Apple Music - A$12.99 /mo
  • Raindrop - A$3.75 /mo

Total $61.5 /mo

Side hobby

  • Cloudways - A$10 /mo
  • Capacities A$16 /mo
  • Claude A$33 /mo (experimenting)

Total - $59 /mo

Grand total: $120

Did not include shared streaming subscriptions with partner like Netflix, HBO Max etc.

Generally do not like subscriptions so I’d like to keep it under $100. We’ll see.

15

That’s a significant factor. We’re a family with kids as well, but I kind of enforce a monoculture in the streaming/online video department, haha. And older kids pay for their own services if they don’t want what we have, e.g. there’s also Spotify in this house but it’s not my expense; I offer Apple Music.

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16

For software, I have started to move to free alternatives, or those where I pay one year and can use indefinitely, although I will lose the support and enhancement.

So my current sub is just
News/Entertainment

  1. NYT and WSJ - fortunately, I am at $1 and $4/month for these introductory prices but I am guessing I might just choose one and stick with it
  2. Netflix
  3. Apple TV - also ending soon… I need to quickly finish Severance S2 and Pluribus. The fact that I can’t means I am really not getting a lot of value out of TV+
  4. Spotify Family

Services
5. Apple iCloud 2TB
6. ChatGPT Pro

Software
7. Drafts Pro - it is ending soon and I have written my own simple note taking alternatives, called Quick Scrap Note, to replace Drafts Pro. Actually, Drafts, free version, is equally adequate
8. 1Blocker
9. Office365

Not a whole lot, thankfully. I am planning to retire soon, so I need to continue to cut down further… or get the kids to pay for them! LOL!

17

We live in subscription era. No way to get away from it.
I have google drive, apple tv subscription, chatgpt, claude code, antigravity being a developer these are much needed.
Mine is range of 100$ per month.

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18

1.29CAD+tax for 50gb iCloud plan, that’s it (with the otherwise standard and obvious phone plan/ISP monthly charges).

Subscriptions are cancer.

Octarine for notes, godspeed for tasks (got the lifetime thing from them, will move back to things should things go south or try Taskpaper/plaintext managers if that’s gone too). Busycal for calendar (Apple calendar works just fine too). Everlog for journaling needs.

Set up my own NAS (not a crazy difficult process and runs smooth after all is done) with plex/infuse player, use it for ALL streaming needs (movies, tv shows, audiobooks, music etc.)

19

PBS Passport, Recurring donation to my colleges Public Radio Station ($15/Month)
Netflix: $18/Month (though that;s ending this month)
Apple One Family Sharing (Verizon Deal) (Music, iCloud, TV, Arcade): $17/Month
Print Subscription to Christianity Today $44/Year
Proton Drive: $99 a year
Gemini AI - $8.00 a month
Apple Care for Watch and Phone $9.99 a month.
Xbox Essential ($25 every 3 months or $9.99 a month - I only really play one game online)

20

You all have inspired me to do an inventory of the various services I’m paying for annually or monthly, but, I must admit, I’m a little afraid to…look :see_no_evil:

Send help.

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