Forgotten Subscriptions Cost the Average Household $384/Year — Add Up Yours
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About 70% of people have forgotten to cancel a free trial that quietly converted to a paid subscription. List what you've found on your statements and see exactly how much those months of not noticing actually cost.
We ran two typical forgotten charges through this and it was $169.87, not “not much”
A $14.99/month fitness app forgotten for 8 months ($119.92) plus a $9.99/month cloud VPN trial forgotten for 5 months ($49.95) comes to $169.87 — below the published 2026 national average of $384/year, but still real money for two subscriptions most people would say “oh, I forgot about that” to. The point of this tool isn’t to shame anyone; surveys suggest roughly 70% of people have forgotten to cancel a free trial at some point. It’s the norm, not a personal failing — which is exactly why it’s worth quantifying rather than shrugging off.
The $384/year figure comes from one 2026 survey; other estimates (CNET, 2025) put the average closer to $204/year. Treat either number as a benchmark for context, not a precise target — what matters is your own list, built from an actual look at your bank or card statement rather than memory.
How the math works
- Wasted cost per item = monthly price × months before noticed.
- Total wasted = sum of wasted cost across every listed item.
- Vs. national average = total wasted − $384 (the published 2026 national average).
- Average months before noticed = mean of the months-before-noticed values across all listed items.
Sources: JustCancel 2026 survey ($384/year national average), CNET 2025 survey ($204/year), and industry reporting that roughly 70% of consumers have forgotten to cancel a free trial that converted to paid.
The honest limit: this only totals what you list. It can’t find subscriptions you haven’t yet noticed — a full statement review, going back at least 12 months, typically turns up more than people expect on the first pass.
Math runs locally. Inputs never leave your browser. Source on github.
Where this calculation doesn’t apply
- You cancelled promptly and just want a general benchmark. If you don’t have specific forgotten charges to list, the national-average figure alone is context, not something to calculate against an empty list.
- The subscription still gets some use. “Forgotten” here means truly unused. If you occasionally open the app, it’s a low-value subscription worth reconsidering, not a pure waste calculation.
- You’re estimating future risk, not past waste. This tool totals confirmed past charges. For managing the risk of forgetting a new free trial, a calendar reminder set at signup is the actual fix, not this calculator.
- Annual subscriptions. The per-month model assumes monthly billing. For an annual subscription forgotten for one renewal cycle, just enter the full annual charge as a single “month” for a rough approximation.
What to actually do
- Pull up 12 months of bank or card statements and scan every recurring charge line by line.
- For each one you don’t immediately recognize or haven’t used recently, note the monthly price and how many months it’s likely run unused.
- Cancel what you’ve confirmed you don’t want — most services let you cancel online in under 2 minutes.
- Set a recurring quarterly reminder to repeat this statement scan, since new forgotten charges accumulate the same way the old ones did.
Scenarios we’ve already crunched
This tool provides general educational estimates and does not constitute financial advice.