How much do you really spend on software subscriptions, and what to cut

No single subscription looks like a problem. Nine euros here, twelve there, the domain once a year. Then one day you add up the receipts and the number is a different story: if you work on your own, five or six tools can easily reach €60 to €80 a month, which is close to a thousand euros a year.

You don't need to cancel everything. You need to know what you pay for, when it renews and whether you still use it.

The one-hour audit

The full list isn't kept anywhere. You have to rebuild it from four sources:

• your card statements for the last twelve months, because yearly subscriptions show up only once and are easy to forget;
• your inbox, searching for "receipt", "renewal", "invoice" and "subscription";
• the subscriptions on your phone, in the App Store or Google Play settings;
• PayPal automatic payments, which don't go through your card and never appear on the statement.

For each item, write down five things: the name, the monthly cost (yearly price divided by twelve), the next renewal date, what it's for and the last time you actually used it. That last column is the one that saves you money.

The real cost is the yearly one

An example, with made-up but typical numbers:

That's €69 a month, €828 a year. If one order leaves you €14, you need 59 orders a year just to pay for your tools. Seen that way, the question changes. You stop asking "how much does this app cost" and start asking "how many orders does it cost me".

Monthly or yearly

Almost every tool gives you a discount on the yearly plan. Shopify, for example, charges €27 a month for the Basic plan if you pay monthly and €19 if you pay yearly: a €96 difference over a year.

Our rule is simple. Switch to yearly only for tools you've used for at least six months and are sure you'll keep. For anything you're still trying out, stay monthly. The discount isn't worth a full year paid for software you drop after three months.

Overlaps

This is where you save the most. Two note-taking apps, one paid cloud storage plan next to a free one that's half full, design software you only open to resize photos. When two tools do the same job, keep the one you use more and move everything else there.

Then check the free plans. Many tools you've paid for over the years have expanded their free tier in the meantime, and for the way you use them it might be enough.

The VAT you don't see

If you work in Italy, this part matters. Many of these tools bill you from abroad. Without a VAT number, you pay VAT inside the price. On the forfettario regime, if you gave your VAT number to the supplier, you often get an invoice with no VAT on it, but you still have to add it yourself (reverse charge) and pay it with the F24 form, with no way to reclaim it. The real cost is 22% higher than the price on the pricing page. If you're not sure how this works for your suppliers, it's a question for your accountant.

A date in the calendar

An audit doesn't do much if it stays in a file. Put two things in your calendar:

• a reminder one week before every yearly renewal, so you decide before the charge goes through;
• a review of the whole list every three months, with the "last used" column updated.

Hustlo has a dedicated area for this, Subscriptions: each tool with its cost, its renewal date and an alert before it renews. A well-kept spreadsheet that you open every three months does the job too.

The first step is today: open your statements for the last twelve months and highlight every charge that repeats.