How to find and cancel forgotten online subscriptions that are costing you a fortune

Over the years, I’ve likely wasted thousands of dollars on forgotten subscriptions—and I’m not alone. A 2022 survey by research firm C+R found that 42% of Americans had paid for subscriptions they’d forgotten about. It’s easy to lose track, especially when payments are scattered across credit cards, debit cards, PayPal, and app store accounts.

Here’s how to track down and cancel those forgotten charges.

Subscription management apps: Rocket Money, Hiatus, Trim

Dedicated services are among the most effective tools for finding and canceling forgotten subscriptions—and potentially switching to cheaper or free alternatives. But they come with a trade-off: To work, these tools require access to your personal financial data, which can be used for marketing and may compromise your privacy. The more companies that hold your data, the greater your risk in the event of a breach. If that’s a concern, don’t worry—we’ll explore lower-risk options farther down.

I tested three services: Rocket Money, Hiatus, and OneMain Trim. All three can identify old subscriptions for free. Rocket Money and Hiatus also offer to cancel them for you—for a fee.

These services connect to your financial accounts using Plaid. While Plaid doesn’t share your login credentials, it does access other types of data. In 2022, the company settled a $58 million class-action lawsuit related to its data practices and agreed to limit what it stores and delete certain user data—a process it said was already in progress.

Rocket Money identified seven of my nine active subscriptions, including an Apple bundle. It offered to cancel five of them—if I subscribed to its “pay-what-you-want” plan, offering me a range from $6 to $12 per month after a seven-day free trial. The plan also includes budgeting and expense-minimizing tools. Some services, like Apple, require manual cancellation, it said, as Rocket Money can’t act on a user’s behalf in all cases.

However, Rocket Money’s privacy policy allows it to use a broad range of personal data for marketing its sister companies, including Rocket Mortgage. The company says it doesn’t share financial data like transaction history or account balances with affiliates, but it does share other personal details for advertising purposes. (Rocket does have an opt-out for residents of states that require it: California, Connecticut, Delaware, New Hampshire, Oregon, Texas and Virginia.)

Hiatus uncovered five subscriptions, including those from Apple. It could cancel two if I signed up for its Premium plan: I was offered the choice of from $10 to $21 per month (or $48 per year). This plan includes access to other financial tools. The company says it doesn’t sell personal data to third parties without consent, but it didn’t respond to multiple requests for clarification.

Trim, which focuses specifically on subscription tracking, stood out for its clarity and privacy stance. It found all nine subscriptions and had the cleanest, most intuitive interface. While it doesn’t cancel subscriptions on your behalf, it provides clear instructions and links to do so. Trim’s privacy policy states it doesn’t share data with third parties, though it does share some information with its parent company, OneMain. Users can opt out of advertising. Despite lacking automated features, Trim offered the best overall balance of accuracy, privacy, and affordability.

Manual Methods to Find Subscriptions

If you’d rather not link your financial accounts, you can manually weed through charges to them. Even if you use a management service, a manual check can catch what it may miss.

Listings on mobile devices

To find subscriptions on Android devices, go to the Google Play app home screen, tap your avatar at the top right, then tap Payments & Subscriptions > Subscriptions. On iPhones and iPads, go to Settings, click your name, and click Subscriptions.

Stored browser logins and password managers

Check saved website login data for more clues. In Google Chrome on a computer, click the three-dot menu icon in the upper right, then Passwords and autofill > Google Password Manager. In Apple’s Safari, click Safari > Settings > Passwords. If you use a password manager like 1Password or Dashlane, check them, too.

Emails from subscription services

You will often get emails from services you subscribe to, such as welcome messages or updates to privacy policies. Search for text like “free trial,” “terms,” “welcome,” “privacy policy,” “your account,” or “update” for clues.

How to cancel subscriptions yourself

If you’re not using a subscription management app (or if it can’t cancel all accounts for you), try searching the web for something like “cancel subscription new york times” (which worked). Or ask a chatbot. I prompted ChatGPT with: “How do I cancel a [name of service] subscription? Provide links to the relevant account pages where possible.” It found the right links for Apple, ChatGPT, Evernote, Flickr, Google, Hulu, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal, and missed only MIT Technology Review. The step-by-step instructions were right or close to right in most cases.

Canceling all your unwanted subscriptions could take half a day—but the savings will likely be worth the time.

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