Summary

The author discusses their annual expenditure on app and entertainment subscriptions, totaling £2330, and reflects on the value these services provide.

Abstract

The article reveals the author's audit of their subscription services, focusing on the cost of entertainment and app services. The author subscribes to various streaming platforms like Disney+, Netflix, and Amazon Prime, and pays for Apple One bundle, Sky television and broadband, and several individual apps. The total annual cost for entertainment is £1670, while apps and services amount to £660. The author justifies these expenses by the value and convenience the services offer, despite the arbitrary pricing of some apps. They also mention the necessity of subscriptions for maintenance and updates, and the preference for annual payments to avoid frequent decision-making about renewals.

Opinions

The author believes in the necessity of subscriptions for the continued maintenance and improvement of apps and services.
They express that the value of a service can justify its cost, especially if it enhances one's life or work.
The author has a pragmatic approach to subscriptions, choosing annual payments for services they are confident they will use.
They acknowledge that some people may opt out of services due to the cost of annual subscriptions.
The author admits to being selective with subscriptions, keeping only those that provide significant personal value.
They suggest that the cost of apps can seem arbitrary but should be balanced against the perceived benefits.
The author implies that convenience and familiarity with certain apps can be a strong reason to continue paying for them, despite free alternatives being available.
They hint at the idea that mutual benefit is important, as shown by their willingness to maintain a subscription that supports a good cause.

How Much Do You Spend On Apps?

The amount I spend shocked me! It will shock you too!

Photo by Daria Shevtsova: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-person-reading-1928151/

Whether you like them or not, subscriptions are a part of life and they’ve been around for years.

There are subscriptions for pretty much anything. Starting with the daily newspaper, magazines, video on demand services, apps, food, wine, even mens shaving kits. Not to mention this very site too.

I’ve recently done an audit of all the subscriptions I have for apps and entertainment services.

I haven’t included the tv licence (a fee that we pay in the UK). That’s a mandatory fee which is pretty much impossible not to have.

Everything else is choice.

I’m not going to list all of them, but I will say that in the majority of cases I pay annually. I prefer to do that where I’m confident I’ll still be using the service.

Entertainment

Let’s take a look at entertainment, to start with.

There are so many streaming services, but the one’s we subscribe to are:

Disney+
Netflix
Apple One (this includes Apple Music, Apple TV+, Arcade and 200GB of iCloud storage)
Sky (including television and broadband)
Amazon Prime (Video, shopping, photo storage etc)

The total spend on entertainment, annually is £1670!

I included Amazon, since we use the Prime Video service almost daily.

Apps & Services

It’s interesting how people don’t complain about paying for video on demand services annually (or maybe they do, and I just don’t hear that), but when it comes to apps and services there’s a big ‘NO’ from some quarters.

People who actually stop using a service because they don’t want to pay annually.

Why not?

Apps need to be maintained, updated and, in some cases, re-worked and re-released. This doesn’t come cheap.

Developers still need to eat.

Paying a one-off fee is all well and good, but next year, when there’s a new shiny release, with new functionality, you shouldn’t expect to get the upgrade.

In recent times, more and more apps are moving to the subscription model. Pay an annual fee and benefit from updates, fixes and new releases.

For all the apps and services that I use, it costs £660 per year.

All, bar one, are paid for annually.

So all-in-all, the total cost is £2330.

Wow!

Just seeing that written down is quite scary.

Each app is priced differently. It can seem that the cost of the app is completely arbitrary.

This then needs to be balanced with the value you place on these apps.

Will they make your life inherently better?

Drafts, the app for making notes, and has a number of built-in actions and functionality, is £17.50 per year.
Fantastical 3, the calendar app I use, and love, is £39 per year.
Then there’s Microsoft 365, which I can’t get away from (£80) and I use Canva quite heavily, and it’s shared with my son (£95).
The cheapest app, and I’d get rid of it, if it wasn’t for the fact it’s so cheap and so good, is CARROT, the weather app. Just £3 per year.

Cost vs Benefits

As I mentioned above, it’s all about the value you perceive to get from the apps and services.

In most cases, I’ve looked at alternatives, but they don’t work for me. I’ve become used to the apps I have. Paying annually means I forget, for a year, and look again when the renewal comes around.

I have been quite ruthless in the past, but the ones I’ve called out above are the keepers.

Yes, I could revert to using the Apple Calendar for free, but the experience isn’t as good.

I could remove Drafts, but it’s not extortionate and I like it.

I could remove Canva, but it offers value to me and my son.

I could remove Netflix (£260 per year) but I think that will cause mutiny within the family!

It’s all about the value.

What subscriptions do you pay for that you can’t do without?

Let me know in the comments?

Thank you for reading

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