Subscription Audit: The Exact Process to Find Every Recurring Charge You Shouldn't Be Paying

Most people can name their main subscriptions. Netflix. Spotify. Maybe a gym. What they can't name are the other ones — the professional tool from a finished project, the annual plan that renewed without them noticing, the free trial that became paid months ago. These are the ones a subscription audit finds. Here's the exact process. WHAT IS A SUBSCRIPTION AUDIT A subscription audit is a systematic, line-by-line review of your bank statement specifically focused on recurring charges — anything billing on a monthly or annual cycle. Unlike a general budget review, a subscription audit has one specific goal: find every charge you're paying for and decide, for each one, whether it's worth it. Most people doing this for the first time find they're paying for 2–4 things they had completely forgotten about. The combined cost is typically $65–$120/month. WHAT YOU NEED Your last 3 months of bank statements as a CSV file. Download this from your bank's website — look for "Download," "Export," or "Download transactions" in your account activity. Select CSV format. For annual subscriptions, download 13 months — annual renewals only appear once per year and are the easiest to miss. STEP 1: SORT BY MERCHANT NAME Open the CSV in Google Sheets or Excel. Sort by the Description column. This groups every charge from the same merchant together. Every merchant appearing more than once is a recurring charge. That's your subscription list — the real one, not the one you'd write from memory. STEP 2: BUILD YOUR ACTUAL SUBSCRIPTION LIST For every recurring merchant, note: What it actually is (Google any name you don't recognise — our mystery charge decoder at mymoneyleak.com/blog/unknown-charge-on-your-bank-statement-heres-what-every-mystery-merchant-name-means covers the most common ones) Monthly amount Annual cost (monthly × 12) Last time you actually used it The annual cost column is the one that changes behaviour. $12.99 looks different as $155.88. STEP 3: THE THREE QUESTIONS For each subscription on your list, answer: Do I know what this is? Have I used it in the last 90 days? Would I sign up for this today at the current price? Any subscription failing question 2 or 3 is a ghost subscription — a recurring charge delivering zero value. For a full breakdown of how ghost subscriptions work and what they cost on average, see: What Is a Ghost Subscription and How Much Is It Costing You (mymoneyleak.com/blog/what-is-a-ghost-subscription-and-how-much-is-it-costing-you) STEP 4: CHECK FOR DUPLICATES Look for any merchant appearing twice within the same calendar month. Also look for the same dollar amount from two different-looking merchant names — this catches services that bill under a parent company name, which most people miss entirely. STEP 5: CHECK FOR PRICE CREEP For each subscription you're keeping, confirm what you're actually being charged versus what you think the price is. Subscription price increases are common and rarely announced prominently. Netflix, Spotify, Adobe, and most SaaS services have all raised prices 20–50% in the last 3 years. If you signed up at a lower price and haven't checked since, you may be absorbing a significant increase without having decided to. STEP 6: CANCEL TODAY Don't add cancellations to a to-do list. Open each one you're cancelling right now, in a new tab, and complete the cancellation before closing the spreadsheet. Cancellation flows are deliberately complex. The longer the gap between deciding to cancel and actually doing it, the lower the completion rate. For step-by-step cancellation instructions for every major bank and subscription service, see: How to Cancel Subscriptions You Forgot About (mymoneyleak.com/blog/how-to-cancel-subscriptions-you-forgot-about-step-by-step-for-every-major-bank) THE AUTOMATED VERSION If you'd rather skip steps 1–5, upload your CSV to mymoneyleak.com. The engine runs every step above automatically in about 60 seconds — finding all recurring charges, flagging unused ones, detecting duplicates, identifying price increases, and calculating your annual cost across everything. Free tier at mymoneyleak.com/pricing shows your biggest subscription finding with no card required. No bank login — just the CSV file you already downloaded. HOW OFTEN TO DO THIS First audit: finds the most, typically 2–4 cancellations Quarterly: 10 minutes, catches new subscriptions that crept in Annual deep audit: 13 months of data, catches annual renewals After the first audit, most people find the number drops significantly. The subscriptions that survive are the ones you're consciously choosing to keep. Start your free subscription audit: mymoneyleak.com — no bank login, no card required. External resource: NerdWallet's guide to managing monthly expenses (https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/finance/how-to-save-money)