ContractLifeManage subscriptions: finally an overview of every subscription
Streaming, music, cloud, gym, the app subscriptions on your phone – hardly anyone still knows what is actually being charged each month. ContractLife brings every subscription together in one place, with billing day and cost, and reminds you before the next renewal.
Free · no credit card · GDPR-compliant
The problem with subscriptions
Subscriptions are deliberately built to be forgotten: small amounts, automatic renewal, inconspicuous charges. By the end of the month it adds up to a considerable sum – for services you may not even use any more. A subscription management app makes visible what otherwise disappears into your bank statement.
How large that item has become is shown by a 2024 survey by the subscription specialist Bango among 1,000 respondents in Germany: 3.3 subscriptions per person, together around 684 euros a year – and 32 percent say themselves that they have lost track of their subscription costs (Bango study 2024, via Digitalfernsehen).
How ContractLife brings your subscriptions together
- Subscription Hub – every subscription clearly listed with its billing day (1st–31st) and monthly cost.
- Monthly total – you see at a glance what all your subscriptions cost together.
- Reminder before renewal – SmartAlerts get in touch before a subscription renews or is charged.
- Cancel with one tap – cancel subscriptions you no longer use straight from the app, letter included.
Not just subscriptions
Alongside subscriptions, ContractLife also manages your insurance policies, phone and energy contracts and every other fixed cost – so your complete monthly spending sits in one place instead of five different apps.
What is subscription management?
Subscription management means keeping every recurring payment in one place — with its amount, its billing day and the date it next renews. The difference to a plain list lies in that third point: a subscription does not cost you money once, it keeps costing until you actively do something about it. Knowing the amounts shows you the expense. Knowing the dates lets you end it. Then there is the total: twelve subscriptions at six euros each go unnoticed individually, but come to 864 euros a year together. That only becomes visible once every item sits side by side. The second reason subscriptions slip through is how they are spread across billing routes: some run through the bank, some through the Apple account, some annually rather than monthly. Subscription management brings them onto a common denominator — the monthly figure — and only that makes them comparable at all.
Subscription overview: where recurring payments hide
The forgotten subscriptions are rarely the big ones. They are the ones running through a different channel than expected:
| Where it runs | Why it gets overlooked |
|---|---|
| App Store subscriptions | They run through your Apple account and appear on the bank statement as one combined amount. |
| Annual subscriptions | They only charge once a year — precisely when you are not expecting it. |
| Subscriptions via third parties | Streaming bundled into a mobile contract, or a magazine through the publisher. |
| Free trials | Started at no cost and rolled over into a running subscription unnoticed. |
| Duplicate subscriptions | Taken out twice because nobody in the household knew it already existed. |
Tidied up in three steps
First collect: add every subscription with its amount and billing day, including the small ones. Then assess: what have you actually used in the past three months? What went unused rarely gets used again. Finally decide — cancel, pause or deliberately keep. The third step is the only one that saves money, and the only one with a deadline. That is why ContractLife files the next renewal date as a countdown for every subscription, instead of showing only the amount.
Cancel, pause or step down a subscription
Cancelling is not always the best option, and that is why so many clear-outs peter out: you actually want to keep the service. There are two intermediate steps. Pausing is offered by some providers for a few months — useful for anything used seasonally. Stepping down pays off with services that have several tiers, for instance if you pay for four simultaneous streams but watch alone. Both lower the monthly total immediately without giving up anything you genuinely use. Only what remains after that and still goes unused really belongs cancelled.
How do I keep track of my subscriptions?
In the Subscription Hub you add each subscription with its billing day and cost. The app brings all subscriptions together, adds up the cost and reminds you before the next charge.
Does the app find my subscriptions automatically?
No, and that is deliberate: doing so would mean reading your bank transactions. ContractLife requires no bank access. You add subscriptions from a photo of the confirmation, by PDF upload or manually.
How do I cancel an App Store subscription?
App Store subscriptions are cancelled in your iPhone settings under your Apple account, not with the provider. ContractLife can still track them with date and cost so they appear in your overall total.
Can I cancel subscriptions directly?
Yes. For contracts that can be cancelled, ContractLife creates a finished cancellation letter with your signature – exportable as a PDF or sent directly.
What happens after a free trial?
Most free trials roll over into a paid subscription automatically. Add the end date of the trial to the subscription and ContractLife will remind you in good time beforehand.
Is subscription management free?
For a single person ContractLife is completely free and ad-free. A premium plan only comes in for family mode, that is for sharing with several people.
Which recurring payments belong in the subscription overview?
Everything that debits regularly: streaming, music, cloud, software, the gym, magazines and app subscriptions through your Apple account — annual subscriptions too, converted to a monthly figure. The monthly total is only right once they all sit side by side.