Why this exists
Most people who run their own business are paying for at least one thing they have completely forgotten about.
Sometimes it is a tool they signed up for during a busy period and never cancelled. Sometimes it is a free trial that quietly became a paid subscription three years ago. Sometimes it is something that auto-renewed at a higher price without any warning, and the new amount was just different enough from what they remembered to be confusing -- but not different enough to trigger alarm bells.
It adds up. Not dramatically, not all at once. Just quietly, month after month, in small amounts that individually feel too minor to chase down and collectively amount to something that would genuinely surprise you.
This guide and the spreadsheet that comes with it will help you find every recurring payment leaving your account, work out what it actually is, decide whether you still want it, and cancel the ones you do not.
It takes about an hour. For most people it saves significantly more than that in real money -- often within the first month.
Rosie Glassey, May 2026
Before you start
Gather these before you open the spreadsheet.
Your bank statements
Go back 13 months -- not 12. Annual subscriptions renew once a year, and if you only look back 12 months you might miss one that renewed just before your window. Download or print statements for every account money flows through -- business current account, personal account if you mix them, any savings accounts with regular outgoings.
Your PayPal transaction history
Log into PayPal, go to Activity, and filter by Recurring Payments. This is where a lot of forgotten subscriptions hide -- PayPal makes it easy to set up recurring payments and easy to forget them.
Your credit card statements
If you pay for anything on a credit or debit card, check those statements separately. Work through the same 13-month window.
Your phone subscription lists
- iPhone: Settings, your name, Subscriptions
- Android: Google Play Store, profile icon, Payments and Subscriptions, Subscriptions
These show you everything billed through your phone -- apps, services, streaming, storage -- in one place. Many people find surprises here.
Your Amazon account
Amazon, Account, Memberships and Subscriptions. Prime, Kindle Unlimited, Audible, Amazon Music -- all listed separately and all easy to forget.
Mystery payments
The most common reason people keep paying for things they do not use is that they cannot work out what the payment is for -- so they leave it rather than investigate. Here is a plain-English guide to the most common confusing entries on bank and card statements.
Filling in the spreadsheet
Open your copy of the spreadsheet. You will find one tab -- Subscriptions -- with the following columns.
The summary row at the top
Above the column headers you will see four figures that update automatically as you fill in the rows: total monthly spend, total annual spend, number marked to cancel, and number marked to review. Watch the annual spend figure as you add subscriptions. That number is the reason you are doing this.
The colour system
The spreadsheet uses colour to show you what needs attention.
- Still Using column -- red means you marked this No, amber means Review, green means Yes
- Renewal Date column -- red means already renewed, amber means renewing within 30 days, green means more than 30 days away
Making the decisions
Once your spreadsheet is filled in, work through every row marked amber or red in the Still Using column.
For anything marked No
Cancel it. Today. Not next month. Today. Every month you delay is another month you are paying for something you do not use. Subscriptions are designed to make cancellation feel like effort. It almost never is.
For anything marked Review
Ask yourself one question: if this service disappeared tomorrow, would I notice or would I feel relieved? If you would notice -- keep it. If you would feel relieved -- cancel it. If you are genuinely unsure -- set a reminder to review it in 30 days. If you have not used it by then, cancel it.
For anything marked Yes but amber on renewal date
Check the price. Is it still what you originally signed up for? Subscription prices increase regularly and the renewal email often buries the new amount in small print. If the price has increased significantly since you signed up, it is worth checking whether there is a better deal available -- or whether you still need it at the new price.
Keeping your sheet tidy
Once you have cancelled a subscription you can hide the row so it moves out of the way without being deleted. The row stays in the sheet and still counts correctly in your totals -- it just stops cluttering your view.
- To hide a row: click the row number on the left, right click and select Hide row
- To bring it back: click the row numbers either side of the gap, right click and select Unhide rows
How to cancel
The cancel button is rarely where you would expect it to be. Here is where to look.
Try the direct URL first
Most services have a cancellation page at [servicename].com/cancel or [servicename].com/billing or [servicename].com/account. Try these before spending time searching through settings menus.
JustDeleteMe.com
A genuinely useful website that rates how difficult services make it to cancel and provides direct links to cancellation pages. Search for the service name and follow the link.
Apple subscriptions
Settings, your name, Subscriptions, select the subscription, Cancel Subscription.
Google subscriptions
play.google.com/store/account/subscriptions -- lists everything billed through Google.
PayPal recurring payments
PayPal, Settings, Payments, Manage Automatic Payments. Cancel from here rather than through the service itself -- this stops the payment at source.
If you cannot find the cancel option
Email their support team directly. State clearly that you want to cancel your subscription and stop all future payments. Keep the email. If they continue charging you after a written cancellation request, you have grounds to dispute the charge with your bank.
If you do not recognise a charge and cannot identify it
Contact your bank. You can dispute unrecognised recurring charges and request that your bank block future payments from that merchant. Your bank is on your side here.
Set your reminders
Once you have cancelled what you do not need, deal with what you are keeping.
For every subscription you are keeping -- particularly anything marked amber on the renewal date -- open Google Calendar and add the renewal date as an event with a reminder set for three weeks before.
Name the event exactly as it appears in your spreadsheet -- "Adobe Creative Cloud renewal, £54.99" -- so when the reminder arrives you know immediately what it is about and what you are deciding.
Every time you sign up for a new subscription -- add it to the spreadsheet the same day. Takes two minutes. Means you never lose track of it.
The audit is not a one-off exercise. It is a habit.
Once a year, go through every row, update the Still Using column honestly, and cancel anything that has crept in without earning its place.
What next
Take a moment and total up what you have cancelled. Write it down. That is real money back in your account -- money that was leaving quietly every month with nothing to show for it.
Most people who complete the Subscription Audit find they have saved between £20 and £200 a year. Some find considerably more. That is what an hour of your time is worth.
About Rosie Glassey
I have been running Pooil Vaaish Engraving on the Isle of Man for 27 years -- a bespoke commission business where every job is different, every client is someone's something, and I am the person who does all the things.
I designed the Subscription Audit because I know what it is like to be quietly losing money on tools and services you have forgotten you signed up for, while simultaneously trying to run a business, fulfil orders and remember what you were supposed to be doing next.
The spreadsheet costs nothing. The hour it takes costs nothing. The money it saves is real.
Ready to go further?
The Subscription Audit addresses money leaving your business quietly. These two tools help with everything else -- and right now, Just Three Places is available at an introductory price for the first 20 installs.