How to find and cancel subscriptions you forgot about

Step 1: find every subscription

Subscriptions hide in more places than you'd think. One might come from your bank card, another through your phone's app store, and a third via PayPal. Work through these in order and write each one down as you go: name, price, how often, and how you pay.

1. Bank and card statements. Go back three months, so you catch quarterly charges too. Look for the same company on similar dates. Check every card, including old ones still linked to accounts. Many banking apps also list your regular payments.
2. App stores. Apple and Google bill for subscriptions bought inside apps. On a statement these may only show as "Apple" or "Google", so check the store itself (steps below).
3. PayPal. Businesses you've paid with PayPal can take repeat payments. They're listed in your PayPal settings.
4. Amazon. Prime, Kindle Unlimited, Audible and channel add-ons sit under Your memberships and subscriptions.
5. Your email. Search for "receipt", "renewal", "your subscription", "trial" and "invoice". This catches things paid on a card you'd forgotten.
6. Your phone bill. Some services are added to your mobile contract or billed by your network.

Where to see subscriptions on Apple, Google Play and PayPal

Menus move from time to time. These follow Apple's, Google's and PayPal's help pages as of October 2026.

Step 2: cancel the right way

• Cancel where you subscribed. If you signed up in an iPhone app, cancel through Apple. If you signed up on the company's website, cancel there. Cancelling in the wrong place may do nothing.
• Don't just delete the app. Google states plainly that uninstalling an app doesn't cancel the subscription. The same is true on iPhone.
• Mind the timing. For an Apple free trial, cancel at least 24 hours before it ends. Google Play, and most other services, keep your access until the end of the period you've already paid for, so cancelling a paid plan early rarely loses you anything.
• Get proof. Screenshot the confirmation screen or keep the email. On Apple, a subscription that's already cancelled shows an end date instead of a Cancel button.
• Say no to the retention offer, or, if you take a cheaper deal, note when it ends.
• Check the next statement. Make sure the charge really stopped.

PayPal is a special case. Cancelling an automatic payment in PayPal stops PayPal paying, but PayPal notes it doesn't necessarily end your contract with the company. Cancel with the company too.

Free-trial traps

A free trial is a subscription with a delayed first payment. The FTC's consumer advice boils down to this:

• Signing up without reading the terms. Find out what you'll pay, when, and how to cancel. If you can't find out, don't sign up.
• Missing pre-ticked boxes. A ticked box can mean agreeing to keep paying, or to an add-on.
• Forgetting the end date. Put a reminder in your calendar two days before the trial ends, the moment you sign up.
• "Free" with a fee. If you have to pay postage or a setup fee, it isn't free.
• Annual plans billed monthly. Some plans look monthly but commit you for a year, with a fee to leave early.

One habit helps: some services let you cancel a trial straight away and still use it until the trial ends, so you can't forget. Others end access the moment you cancel, so read what the cancel screen says before you tap.

Step 3: a 10-minute monthly audit

Once you have the full list, keeping it tidy takes minutes. Pick a day, such as the first Sunday of the month, and run through this:

• What renews in the next 30 days? Will you use it?
• Which free trials end soon?
• Did any price go up? Price rises often arrive by email with little fuss.
• Any new charges on your statement you don't recognise?
• Can anything be shared on a family plan, or paused instead of paid?
• Is there a yearly plan that's cheaper for something you'll definitely keep?

Subscription Tracker keeps this list for you. Add services from a list of more than 170 popular ones, or your own, and it shows your monthly and yearly total, a timeline of what renews next, and a warning before free trials start charging. Each subscription has steps and a link to cancel it. It never asks for a bank login, so you add subscriptions yourself and everything stays on your device.

Common mistakes

• Only checking one card. Old cards, a partner's card and PayPal all count.
• Only looking at monthly costs. Yearly renewals are the ones that surprise you. Multiply monthly prices by 12 to compare.
• Cancelling by deleting an account. Some services keep billing until the subscription itself is cancelled. Cancel first, then delete.
• Keeping things "just in case". Most services let you rejoin in a minute when you need them again.
• Giving your bank login to a third-party app without checking how it's regulated and what it does with your data.

This guide is general information, not financial or legal advice. Rules differ between countries and services.