The average American spends around $1,080 a year on subscriptions, and roughly $205 of that goes to services they rarely or never use. Those figures come from a 2025 CNET survey, and they line up with a feeling most people already have: the small monthly charges add up to a lot more than expected.
It is easy to dismiss any single subscription as a few dollars a month. The problem is that almost nobody has just one. CNET surveyed 2,440 Americans in 2025 in partnership with YouGov, of whom 1,932 had paid for at least one subscription in the past year, and the results put a hard number on a soft, creeping cost most households never sit down to total. The figures below are drawn from that survey.
The headline numbers are larger than most people guess for themselves. When CNET asked respondents to account for everything they pay for on a recurring basis, the averages came out like this:
| What | Per month | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| All subscriptions | ~$90 | ~$1,080 |
| Subscriptions rarely or never used | ~$17 | ~$205 |
That last figure is the one worth pausing on. Over $200 a year, for most people, is money leaving the account every month for something that delivers no value - not because of a single bad decision, but because forgotten subscriptions quietly renew in the background.
The survey also mapped which categories dominate household subscription budgets. Streaming led by a wide margin, but the long tail of e-commerce memberships and music services adds up:
| Category | Share of respondents |
|---|---|
| Streaming video | 61% |
| E-commerce memberships (Amazon Prime, Walmart+) | 37% |
| Streaming music | 33% |
These three categories alone explain a large share of the monthly total, and because each one auto-renews on its own schedule, they are rarely reviewed together. That is precisely how the bill creeps upward without any single moment where someone decided to spend more.
The CNET survey found that subscription fatigue is translating into action. With economic pressure on household budgets, 61% of respondents said they were reconsidering at least one subscription, and one in four said they had already cancelled one. The appetite to trim is clearly there - what most people lack is a clear, complete picture of what they are paying for in the first place.
The survey numbers are averages, but the only ones that matter are yours. A short audit usually surfaces at least one or two charges worth cutting. Work through it in order:
The reason these costs accumulate is that each subscription is forgettable on its own. The fix is a single live list of every service, what it costs, and when it renews - so the total is always visible and every renewal is a conscious choice rather than a surprise charge. Suprascribe is free for manual tracking with no bank access required. The PRO upgrade adds automatic email discovery to surface subscriptions you have forgotten, plus renewal reminders that email you before each charge so you can decide to keep or cancel in time.
Most saving advice asks you to change your habits and wait. These five take effect this month, and the second one is usually the biggest single win available - because it cuts money you are already spending on things you are not using.
A streaming service here, a cloud backup there - individually small, collectively significant. Subscription fatigue is real, and the fix starts with a proper audit.
Forgotten subscriptions can drain hundreds of euros a year. Here is how to find every active subscription and cancel the ones you no longer want. The cancelling is the easy part - the work is tracking down charges that are spread across app stores, PayPal, your bank and the services themselves.
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