Subscription Creep Priced: How Much a Statement Audit Recovers, and How Often It Must Run to Be Worth Its Time

Subscriptions are designed to be forgotten: the payment is small, automatic, and attached to a service whose use fades months before the charge does. This paper simulates a household holding eleven subscriptions, each with a 3.5% monthly chance of lapsing into disuse while payment continues at a mean of USD 13.40, new subscriptions arriving at 0.55 a month, and prices the remedy — a periodic statement audit that cancels everything found forgotten, costing USD 12 of time. With no audits, expected spending on forgotten subscriptions reaches USD 10069.21 a year. Auditing every six months reduces that to USD 299.24 at a time cost of USD 24.00, the best total in the table at USD 323.24; quarterly auditing totals USD 219.11 and annual auditing USD 568.64. The study is simulated, not measured. SIMULATED, NOT MEASURED.