SubscriptMe App Review: Watch Those Recurring Expenses!

“Subscriptions are forgettable by design.”

That is the opening line for the app description of SubscriptMe, a free iPhone/iOS app that help you track your recurring expenses.

How true. All the behavioral psychology-based personal finance tips out there have been used by advertisers forever. Automate your savings? The newspaper and telephone company has been automating the spending of your parents and grandparents for decades. Giving them the ability to automatically charge your credit card is icing on the cake.

Have you added up much your Netflix, Amazon Prime, Spotify, and Dropbox subscriptions are costing you every year? Subscript.me can scan your phone for apps as well as your emails if you let them. They then present you with a pretty list of your subscriptions, letting you set alerts for upcoming bills if you like. The only paid subscription that I have that it found was my $99 annual fee for Amazon Prime. (I have the free versions of Dropbox and Evernote.) Some screenshots:

Ideally, if you are constantly reminded of what you’re paying for, you’ll only keep what you really want. Of course, the free app is paid for by showing you other new services that would like your money.

My main concern is that even if you let it rummage through your e-mails (which already makes me uncomfortable), the app still doesn’t do a good job of finding traditional monthly bills like telephone, cellular, cable, DSL, electricity, gas, trash, etc. It found none of mine. More screenshots:

A neat concept, possible useful for those with a lot of these hip new monthly services like Dollar Shave Club, Blue Apron, or Birchbox. However, since I don’t have many subscriptions, it feels a little niche.