Are Subscription Tracking Apps Worth It?
Savvy subscribers know they can save money by canceling subscriptions to services they don’t actively use. Subscription tracking apps help make this process much more efficient, automatically hunting down all of your subscriptions so you can see at a glance which ones you need to cancel.
But one of the ironies of these apps is that they themselves can charge you a subscription fee if you want access to all of their features. To help you decide if these apps are worth the cost, CNBC Select takes a closer look at what some of the more popular apps offer you in terms of convenience and their ability to save you money.
What we’ll cover
Compare offers to find the best savings account
The cost of the subscription tracker
Most subscription trackers are free to use if you simply want to locate recurring payments — like gym memberships or streaming services — coming out of your bank account and showing up on your credit card statements.
This can help you figure out what recurring payments you currently have. From there, you can always manually log into each of your accounts and begin the cancellation process. But if you’d like the platform to cancel the subscription on your behalf, you’ll usually have to upgrade to the premium version of the app.
If you decide to upgrade so the platform can cancel subscriptions for you, make sure the cost of the upgrade doesn’t exceed the value of the subscriptions you’re canceling. It doesn’t make sense to pay $30 per month just to cancel a subscription that costs $5 per month, for instance.
That being said, there are some relatively affordable options available for tracking and canceling subscriptions. RocketMoney charges between $3 and $12 per month for its premium features, which include being able to cancel unwanted subscriptions.
Rocket Money (formerly Truebill)
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Cost
Free, with option to upgrade to Truebill Premium Service for fee of $3 to $12 per month; bill negotiation costs between 30% to 60% of the 12-month savings achieved as a result of the negotiation
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Standout features
Easily cancel unwanted subscriptions, track your spending and credit score, automate savings and get help lowering bills
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Categorizes your expenses
Yes, Rocket Money (formerly Truebill) instantly identifies your top spending categories
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Links to accounts
Yes, bank and credit cards
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Availability
Offered in both the App Store (for iOS) and on Google Play (for Android), as well as online
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Security features
Rocket Money (formerly Truebill) accesses users’ transaction data via an encrypted token, uses Plaid API so user credentials are never stored, provides bank-level 256-bit encryption and hosts servers on secure Amazon Web Services (AWS), which is used by the Department of Defense, NASA and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA)
Pros
- Negotiates cell phone and cable bills, plus helps you get refunds for some bank fees
- Free version available
- Syncs to your bank accounts and credit cards
- Instantly finds and tracks your subscriptions
- Website says 80% of people save money by using Rocket Money (formerly Truebill) to find and cancel unwanted subscriptions
- Provides breakdown of user spending and notifies of upcoming charges and low balance alerts
- Helps users create a budget
- Users can see their Experian VantageScore 3.0 credit score and get access to their credit report
- Provides an interest-free pay advance up to $100 directly to qualifying users’ checking accounts
- Users can set goals, save money with autopilot Smart Savings feature
- Concierge service available to identify bills to be lowered and, for a fee, Rocket Money (formerly Truebill) will negotiate on users’ behalf for the best rates (non-refundable negotiation fee is anywhere from 30% to 60% of the 12-month savings achieved as a result of the negotiation)
- Rocket Money (formerly Truebill) Premium Service features include free access to Smart Savings feature, unlimited budgeting categories, custom spend categories, real-time account balance updates, premium chat, subscription cancellation concierge, “Truebill Offers” and educational material
- Coming soon: Users can track their net worth
- High Trustscore rating of 4.3/5 stars (from 392 reviews)
Cons
- Costs between $3 and $12 per month to upgrade to Rocket Money (formerly Truebill) Premium Service
- Non-refundable negotiation fee anywhere from 30% to 60% of the 12-month savings achieved as a result of Rocket Money’s (formerly Truebill) bill negotiation on users’ behalf
- Less than 10 Better Business Bureau reviews
- Does not negotiate internet, landline phones, cable/phone/internet bundles, alarm and security systems, satellite radio/TV or electric bills
Billshark is another solid service for canceling subscriptions. It’ll run you $9 per canceled subscription, so it could potentially cost you a lot of money depending on how many subscriptions you end up canceling.
Again, though, this is a reminder to make sure the cost of the service doesn’t outweigh the value of the subscriptions you’re canceling.
Is it worth paying for a service to cancel your subscriptions?
Whether it’s worth it to pay your subscription tracker to cancel your subscriptions largely boils down to two questions — how many subscriptions do you have, and how much do you hate manually canceling them?
If you have a ton of active subscriptions and use a service that charges a fee for each subscription canceled, then you could be looking at a hefty bill. Granted, you have to weigh this one-time charge against the continual drain of forgotten subscriptions on your finances, but you also can manually cancel those subscriptions without having to pay a dime.
Depending on the subscription, canceling it can be a convoluted process–but it can also be as simple as finding your account management page on a service’s website and clicking “cancel my account.” How burdensome you find this will play a big part in determining if you think paying a service to cancel your subscriptions is a good use of money.
You should also consider if upgrading your subscription tracker gives you other benefits as well. Using RocketMoney as an example, paying a monthly fee for Premium Membership not only gives you the ability to cancel subscriptions with it, but also access to your credit score, the ability to create budgets, and other features that you may find useful.
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Bottom line
Subscription cancellation tools and services can come in handy for stopping unwanted recurring expenses from eating into your cash. To get the absolute most out of them, you’ll likely have to pay to access their premium features so it’s important to make sure this upgrade is right for you.
Why trust CNBC Select?
At CNBC Select, our mission is to provide our readers with high-quality service journalism and comprehensive consumer advice so they can make informed decisions with their money. Every article is based on rigorous reporting by our team of expert writers and editors with extensive knowledge of budgeting products. While CNBC Select earns a commission from affiliate partners on many offers and links, we create all our content without input from our commercial team or any outside third parties, and we pride ourselves on our journalistic standards and ethics.
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Editorial Note: Opinions, analyses, reviews or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the Select editorial staff’s alone, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any third party.
