I've spent years as a CMO at B2C SaaS startups built around recurring billing. I designed the trial flows that get you hooked, the renewal warnings that end up in spam, and the cryptic charge descriptors that show up on your card — all intentional product decisions on the provider's side, not accidents. So I know exactly why it's so hard to know how many subscriptions you're paying for: it's not your memory, the system is designed to make this hard.
The average power user has between 8 and 14 active subscriptions and almost no one can list them all from memory. The information is dispersed by design: each charge lives in a different place, descriptors are cryptic, and most US banks still don't expose a clear "recurring subscriptions" view in their app — even the ones that started rolling it out (Chase, Bank of America with Erica) only catch about 60% of the real charges.
There are four ways to find what you're paying for. I'll walk through them from least to most complete, with their real limits — and then how Otto solves this without needing your bank.
Why this is so hard in the first place
The problem isn't memory, it's that the information is fragmented. Your Spotify charges to spotify.com directly. Your Photoshop charges from Adobe.com. Your Crunchyroll subscription, depending on how you started it, can route through Apple, Google, or direct billing. ChatGPT Plus can come from OpenAI or be bundled in your AT&T plan or Capital One Shopping benefits.
And the charge descriptors don't help. These are typical examples on a US statement:
GOOGLE *DOMAINS— a domain someone registered two years agoAPPLE.COM/BILL— some App Store thing, no clue whichPAYPAL *NETFLIX— Netflix paid via PayPalSTRIPE *NOTION— Notion processed via StripeSQUARE *PRIVATE FITNESS— a personal trainer's recurring bookingINTUIT *TURBOTAX— a TurboTax subscription you forgot you renewed
No card statement tells you what service is actually charging you. Decoding it is manual work.
And the official panels (Apple Subscriptions, Google Play Subscriptions, Google's "My Subscriptions") only show their slice of the picture. There's no central panel. That's the gap Otto fills — but before getting there, the other methods.
Method #1: Manually review your credit card
The most obvious, also the most painful. You open your bank's app and scroll through the last 3-6 months of activity. Every recurring charge sits there as just another line.
By major US bank, the most useful paths are:
- Chase: app → Account → Activity → filter by "Subscriptions" (only available since 2024 and catches ~60% of recurring charges)
- Bank of America: app → Mobile menu → Erica → "Show me my subscriptions"
- Capital One: app → Account → Filter → "Recurring charges"
- Wells Fargo: app → no native view, you'll need to scroll manually
- Citi: app → Manage subscriptions section (somewhat hidden under tools)
- Apple Card (Goldman/Apple): Wallet → Apple Card → Spending → "Subscriptions" (catches App Store stuff cleanly, misses everything else)
The problem with this method is threefold. First, the cryptic descriptors mentioned above — STRIPE *X doesn't tell you what service it is. Second, it doesn't catch subscriptions paid via PayPal balance, gift cards, or AppleCard auto-pay if you have multiple cards. Third, it requires you to mentally cross-reference: "this $14.99 every 30 days, what is it?". For someone with 10 active subscriptions, that's easily 40 minutes of work and you'll still miss 2-3.
Works as a rough filter, not as a definitive answer.
Method #2: Apple Subscriptions (if you use iPhone)
If you have an iPhone, Apple does show you a clean list — but only for apps you paid for via the App Store. Apple's official help is at Apple Support, and from the device:
Settings → your name (top) → Subscriptions
You'll see active and expired ones, with the renewal date and amount. It's clean and accurate — for what it catches.
The problem is that if you subscribed to Netflix by going to netflix.com directly with your card (instead of through the iOS app), that subscription doesn't appear here. Same for ChatGPT Plus if you signed up on chat.openai.com. Same for Spotify if you went to spotify.com.
Apple Subscriptions typically captures 30-50% of your real subscriptions for a mainstream iPhone user. For services that bill "direct from the browser", it's useless.
Method #3: Google Play Subscriptions (Android and Web)
The Google equivalent. The official documentation is at Google Play Help. Two paths lead to the same place:
Play Store (on phone) → your profile picture → Payments & subscriptions → Subscriptions
Or from any browser, go direct to:
play.google.com/store/account/subscriptions
This shows you all active subscriptions paid through Google Play (Android apps + Google services like YouTube Premium, Google One, Drive storage).
Same limitation as Apple: if you subscribed outside Play Store (directly on the provider's website), Google doesn't know. A Netflix subscription paid by card doesn't appear here. Spotify Premium if you got it from spotify.com — same.
Good news: if you pay with Google Pay and the card is linked to your Google account, there's a "my subscriptions" view at pay.google.com that shows recurring charges to that card — but it's relatively new and doesn't catch everything.
Apple + Google combined typically cover 60-70% of your subscriptions. The remaining 30-40% are the ones slipping through your fingers.
Method #4: Search your Gmail
This is where it gets interesting. Every provider that charges you on a recurring basis sends you an email — a receipt, a renewal confirmation, a pre-charge warning. If you filter your inbox right, you can find 95-100% of your subscriptions.
The Gmail search operators that work best for this:
from:no-reply— catches most transactional emailsfrom:billing@— specific to billingsubject:"receipt"orsubject:"invoice"— payment confirmationssubject:"renewal" OR subject:"renews"— pre-charge warningsfrom:noreply@spotify.com(or any service domain you suspect)subject:"Your payment"orsubject:"You've been charged"— generic confirmations
The problem with this method is it's manual. You'll open between 50 and 200 emails to check which are actual recurring subscriptions (vs one-off purchases, marketing, or services you cancelled). Then you have to log each one — provider, amount, frequency. For someone with 10 active subscriptions spread over six months of mail, that's easily two hours of clean work.
But the method is comprehensive. If an email comes from a subscription, you'll find it — regardless of Apple, Google, or which card you used.
And that's where method #5 comes in.
The Otto method
Otto automates exactly what you'd do in method #4, but instead of two hours, it takes thirty seconds.
You connect Gmail via Google's official OAuth (the same protocol Slack, Calendly, or any app that asks to read your calendar uses). Otto's model scans only transactional mail — receipts, confirmations, renewal warnings. It filters by sender pattern (no-reply@, billing@, invoices@) and by content (invoice format, amount, recurrence). Your personal emails never get processed.
In thirty seconds you'll have a dashboard with:
- Every subscription detected, with the actual service identified (not
STRIPE *X, but "Notion Pro") - The amount in USD (with currency conversion if charged in another)
- The next billing date
- Automatic detection of silent price hikes, duplicate charges, and trials that converted to paid without your explicit consent
Otto doesn't ask for your bank login, your card, or access to your bank account. That's deliberate — if a "subscription manager" app asks you for your home banking password, run. They don't need it, and giving it to them adds a whole category of risk that no benefit justifies. (For more on how Otto was built and why we made that call, see the About page.)
The scan is free and persists even if you don't take the Pro plan. The paid tier — see our plans — is only if you want Otto to actively help you cancel, negotiate rates, or pursue refunds on the ones you decide you no longer want.
What to do with the ones you find
Once you have the full list, the part most people skip is deciding what to do with each. The quick rule is a triple filter:
Do I use it? If you haven't opened the app in 60+ days and don't miss it, it's a cancellation candidate. Don't wait for "guilt of cancelling something I might use again" — if you come back, just resubscribe.
Am I paying the right price? Some services have annual plans 30-40% cheaper than monthly. Some have Family or Duo tiers. Spotify Family with 6 people costs less per head than Individual.
Is there a free or cheaper equivalent that covers my use? For AI tools, the ecosystem moves so fast that what you pay $20/mo this year could be free the next.
What you decide to cancel can be done directly via the provider's app, or if you want to skip the back-and-forth, Otto drafts the cancellation email in the exact format each provider accepts (Netflix asks for your account ID, Spotify Family asks who the admin is, ChatGPT takes any format). You see the preview, approve, and it sends from your own inbox.
Frequently asked questions
Can I just see my subscriptions from my bank directly?
In the US, partially. Chase, Bank of America (via Erica) and a few others added subscription tracking views in 2024 — but they catch maybe 60% of recurring charges. Services that bill through processors (Stripe, PayPal) often don't get categorized cleanly. Email-based discovery remains the most complete route.
Can Otto read my personal emails?
No, under no circumstances. The scan is scoped to transactional emails from services. Otto's filters are by sender pattern (no-reply@, billing@, invoices@, notifications@) and by content (invoice format, recurrence, amount). A personal or work email doesn't fit those patterns and never gets processed. And if you want to verify exactly what was accessed at any time, that's visible in your dashboard.
Does it work if I have multiple Gmail accounts with different subscriptions?
Yes. You can connect multiple Gmail accounts to Otto and the scan runs on all of them. Pretty common — personal email for entertainment apps, work email for productivity tools. Otto cross-references and gives you a single consolidated dashboard.
Does it work with Outlook or only Gmail?
Today we support Gmail fully and Outlook is in beta (Outlook.com, Live, Hotmail, and corporate Microsoft 365 accounts with admin permissions). If most of your subscriptions hit a work account on Outlook, you can connect it; if they're on an old Hotmail, that too.
How much does Otto cost?
Scanning your Gmail and the subscription dashboard is free forever. No card to start. The Pro plan ($9.99/mo) is only if you want Otto to actively help you cancel, negotiate, or pursue refunds — it's optional.
If you got this far and still don't know what you're paying for, give it the thirty seconds: scan your inbox with Otto and look at the list. What you find usually surprises.
