GLOSSARY · BUDGETING, SPENDING & SAVING

Subscription creep

The slow build-up of recurring charges, through free trials that convert, introductory prices that end and services kept after they stop being used. Each charge is small enough to ignore on its own, so the total is usually larger than people estimate. The remedy is a full list of charges reviewed together on a regular schedule.

Also called: subscription fatigue, recurring charge creep, zombie subscriptions

FORMULA

Yearly cost = sum of monthly prices × 12 + sum of annual prices

COMPUTE IT WITH YOUR NUMBERS

Subscription cost audit →How much am I really paying for subscriptions per year?Lifestyle Creep Detector →Has my spending grown faster than income, and what does it cost my FI date?

LEARN IT PROPERLY

CHAPTER · SUBSCRIPTION & RECURRING COST OPTIMIZATION · DEEP DIVEHow Subscriptions Quietly Add Up CHAPTER · SUBSCRIPTION & RECURRING COST OPTIMIZATION · DEEP DIVEFinding Every Subscription You Pay For

SOURCES

Bringing Dark Patterns to Light (staff report). Federal Trade Commission, 2022.

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