Calculate annual subscription cost.
Enter monthly cost.
What subscriptions actually cost per year
Subscriptions are priced monthly because a monthly number feels small. Annualising them is the entire point of this calculator: the sum of several £10 services is rarely what people expect.
How it works
- Multiplies each monthly charge by twelve and totals them.
- Handles annual plans by dividing back to a monthly equivalent, so mixed billing periods compare fairly.
- Shows the total as a share of income if you supply one, which is usually the number that prompts action.
annual cost = Σ (monthly price × 12) + Σ (annual prices) annual-plan break-even: worth it if you keep the service longer than annual price ÷ monthly price months
Worked example
A fairly ordinary set of five services.
- streaming video 12.99 + music 10.99 + cloud storage 2.99 = 26.97/month
- × 12 = 323.64 per year
- plus a 79 annual password manager and a 99 annual news subscription
- total = 323.64 + 178 = 501.64 per year
Just over 500 a year from services that each felt like a rounding error. The music and video subscriptions alone come to 287 — roughly a week's grocery budget for many households.
Reading the result
- Annual plans typically save 15–20%, but only if you keep the service for the full term. Divide the annual price by the monthly one: if the answer is 10, you need ten months of use to break even.
- Prices rise quietly. Most large services have raised prices at least once in recent years, and the increase arrives as an email that is easy to miss. Re-run this once a year rather than trusting an old total.
- Check for duplicates before cancelling anything. Bundled services — a music tier inside a shopping membership, cloud storage inside an office suite — are the most common source of paying twice.
- Free trials that convert are the largest single category of unwanted charges. If you start one, set a reminder for two days before it ends, not on the day.
Common questions
- Is it worth switching everything to annual billing?
- Only for services you are certain you will keep. Annual billing removes the monthly prompt to reconsider, which is precisely why providers discount it — the saving is real, but so is the reduced likelihood you will cancel something you stopped using.
- How often should I review these?
- Once or twice a year, and always after a price-change email. Scanning a card or bank statement for recurring charges catches the subscriptions you have genuinely forgotten, which no calculator can list for you.