The cost of living continues to rise and if you’re subscribed to services such as Spotify and Netflix, you might be wondering how to cut the cost down while still being able to enjoy what they offer.
There’s plenty of ways you can save money on your subscriptions by making small changes to your accounts, some of which won’t make a difference to the service you have access to.
As subscription prices are increasing, Which? has rounded up 11 tips to help you save money on subscriptions.
11 ways you can save on your subscriptions
Add household members to one subscription
First of all, Which? says people who pay for subscriptions such as Spotify can help cut the cost of their membership by sharing them with other members of their household.
For example, Spotify offers a Premium Duo membership for £13.99 a month, ideal for someone who lives with one other person that wants to use the music streaming service.
The consumer group says this could save £71.88 per year compared to the price of paying for two separate subscriptions.
If there are more people in your household wanting to use Spotify, you could opt for the Premium Family membership.
This costs £16.99 per month and gives up to six users access to premium benefits and saves a huge £515.40 per year when compared to six individual memberships.
Amazon Prime also gives users the option to share their benefits with another member of their household which means they can pay half the price compared to having two separate accounts.
Pay for subscriptions annually
If you know you like a streaming service enough to not want to cancel it within a year, Which? says you could save money by paying for the subscription annually rather than monthly.
Two examples of this are Disney+ and Amazon Prime.
Disney+ customers can save £15.98 by paying for a subscription annually – it costs £7.99 per month or £79.90 per year.
Amazon Prime users can save £12.88 if they choose to pay annually rather than monthly – it costs £8.99 per month or £95 per year.
Rotate your monthly subscriptions
If you know you’ll watch more of one TV subscription’s content than another, you could start planning what to watch at what time.
Subscribers of Netflix, Now, Amazon Prime and Disney+ can cancel at any time for free so if you know you’re going to watch series or films on one and not use another, you could cancel one and only pay for the one you’ll be using.
Which? says that if you were to pay for both Disney+ and Netflix (standard) per month, it would cost a total of £227.76 per year.
Alternating months could cost you £113.88 per year if you paid for six months of Disney+ at £7.99 each month and six months of Netflix at £10.99 per month.
Compare prices
If you’re dying to watch a series or film, Which? recommends doing your own research and finding out where it’s available to watch so you can choose the cheapest option.
You can use the free app JustWatch to find out where you can watch TV shows and films and it compares the price of streaming your chosen entertainment.
For example, shows like Line of Duty and Peaky Blinders are both available to watch on Netflix and BBC iPlayer.
Netflix’s cheapest subscription would set you back £4.99 each month but if you already pay for a TV licence, BBC iPlayer is free.
Change to a cheaper plan
Streaming services often have different plans for members and if you can switch to a cheaper plan that still gives you access to the things you want to watch or listen to, you could save money.
Netflix offers four different plans - basic with adverts (£4.99), basic (£6.99), standard (£10.99) and premium (£15.99).
Users who live alone could be better suited to the basic plan as it only allows for one screen to be watched at one time – this could save you £48 a year.
The basic with adverts plan costs £4.99 per month so could help you cut down the cost if you currently pay for a more expensive plan but it does mean you’ll be interrupted by adverts when watching something.
Amazon Prime customers could switch to the Prime Video plan which is a basic membership that costs £5.99 a month.
Free premium delivery isn’t included in this plan but it’s ideal if you only want to watch shows and it could save you £36 per year.
Is your subscription worth the money?
Using a subscription a handful of times a month probably isn’t worth your money.
Which? uses a Pret coffee subscription as an example.
The subscription costs £30 per month which allows you to buy five hot drinks every day but you must only redeem them one at a time every 30 minutes.
In Pret, you can get a regular-sized latte for £3.30 so three a week would cost £39.60 a month so the subscription could save you £9.60.
Having said this, if you drink black coffee, paying for a subscription could make you worse off financially.
One black coffee at Pret costs £1.80 so if you had three per week, it would come to a total of £18 per month.
This would mean you would have paid an extra £12 when you didn’t need to because you signed up to the subscription.
Other tips to help you save money on your subscriptions
Which? also recommends making the most of free trials but you’ll need to remember when to cancel them as some services will start charging you once the free trial is over.
You should cancel the subscriptions that you don’t use or need to save money.
Remember free services are also available such as All 4, ITVX and My 5.
BBC Sounds is a place you can listen to music for free and joining your local library will mean you can read e-books, magazines, newspapers and more for free.
Make sure you check which freebies you can get with your phone contract as some mobile providers give customers access to streaming services when they take out a contract.
You could also earn cashback when paying for your subscriptions when using sites or a cashback credit card. Your credit or debit card provider may also offer cashback on services you want to pay for.
Find out more about saving money on your subscriptions via the Which? website.
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