Run a subscription audit twice a year

I set a standing reminder to list every tool my business pays for, what it does, and who actually opens it. Twice a year I sit down with that list and cut anything nobody has touched in a while.

This matters because subscriptions creep up quietly. You sign up for a free trial to solve one problem, forget to cancel, and a year later you are paying for software nobody remembers choosing. Small monthly charges add up fast, and the bigger cost is the mental clutter of having tools you cannot explain to your own team.

Doing this regularly keeps your stack honest. It also forces a useful conversation: is this tool still doing its job, or did we just get used to seeing the charge come through.

Try this today: open your bank or card statement, list every recurring software charge on a single page, and mark each one as keep, question, or cancel. Then act on the cancel list before the next billing date hits.