If managing your personal subscriptions are a pain, try these apps!
The subscription business model is booming. Previously dominated by newspapers, magazines, gyms, utilities, and telecommunications firms, more products, and services are being offered to more people through subscriptions than ever before. An “average subscriber” (consumer) has seven or more different types of subscriptions and has somewhere around 12 more subscriptions on his/her wish list for future purchases is what research by Harvard says. I firmly believe that in the next 5–7 years, most of our purchases will be subscription-based. This model takes away the risk of up-front payment and gives us the convenience to scale up or down the product/service based on our needs. The convenience of subscriptions also opens up another problem for us as consumers, and that is to keep track of these subscriptions. It can’t be said better than the ‘dude with a sign’ and the EPIC comment that followed ;)
Not all subscriptions follow the same billing cycle. Some are monthly, some are quarterly, some are semi-annual, and some are annual. It’s easy to lose track of all of this, and we could end up paying without usage or end up overpaying. If you have had a similar thought process and are lazy to maintain one more additional excel, I’ll share a few apps with you.
- Bobby — https://www.bobbyapp.co/
The most popular one for subscription tracking for consumers is Bobby. Whenever you make a purchase, key in the details, and Bobby will remind you when it’s due for renewal. If you are not a diligent person about keying in purchase information, then Bobby might not be able to help. However, it’s only $3 for a lifetime purchase.
2. Truebill — https://www.truebill.com/
If you are a consumer in the US, then this is an app you can consider. Truebill integrates with your bank account, so you don’t have to key your subscriptions every time you buy one. Truebill helps you cancel unwanted subs and even negotiates with certain service providers to reduce your bill. If you think giving access to bank accounts ‘just for’ subscriptions tracking is not worth it, then this app is not for you.
3. Trim — https://www.asktrim.com/
Trim is similar to Truebill and is available only for US consumers at the moment. Its modus operandi is identical to Truebill, but it also helps you with debt reduction and helps you grown money with a 4% bonus on savings
4. Outflow — http://outflowapp.com/
If you are comfortable connecting your Gmail account with a subscription monitoring tool so that you don’t have to key in all the details to get started or to keep it up to date on an ongoing basis, then outflow is the app for you. If you don’t use Gmail, you need to key in all information manually (similar to Bobby)
5. Butter it — https://www.justbutterit.com/
If you are a consumer in Canada, then Butter It works well for you. Butter, part of the Royal Bank of Canada, requires you to connect all banking products you use to buy subscriptions. Once you have joined Butter, it will display all your subscriptions in one place, help you cancel unwanted ones, and assist you in keeping track of subscriptions on an ongoing basis.
If this has helped you, then I have a favor to ask. Please spread the word about Zluri among your friends who might be looking for a subscription monitoring (or SaaS management) platform for their business. If they work in the IT department, then even better :)
The link to join the waitlist is here.
Why are we building Zluri?
With SaaS apps for business mushrooming all over, a 1000 employee business today use on an average 185 SaaS apps. IT Teams have no control over their environment anymore, leading to cost overruns, compliance issues, etc. We are building Zluri for the IT team to get in control of their new SaaS-ified landscape.
