Technologies
4 Apps That Help Track Your Streaming Subscription Bills
Are you making payments for a streaming service you barely use? Here’s how to keep up.
Your streaming subscriptions for Netflix, Spotify, Disney Plus and other accounts are probably all on autopay. Because you don’t have to think about due dates, that may mean you’ve overlooked the monthly expense or who to contact if you want to cancel. You could be spending more money than you want by paying for a phantom streaming service.
Is Netflix billing you directly? Has your forgotten Hulu 30-day free trial turned into a paid subscription? Did you buy your Disney Plus subscription through a third party like Apple, Amazon or Verizon? With all the streaming price changes creeping in, unwatched content, and missed opportunities for deals, it’s a good idea to keep up with who’s billing you, when and for how much. Luckily, there are apps that can make keeping track of your streaming subs a lot easier.
Here’s our list of recommendations for apps that help you track payments for your streaming service subscriptions. Most of these offer a free option, but you can upgrade to a paid version if you want extra features.
Read more: Keep Up With What’s Streaming on TV Using These 5 Free Apps
Formerly known as Truebill, Rocket Money is a well-rounded budgeting app with the option to track your streaming subscriptions. There are free and paid versions available.
It uses Plaid to link your financial accounts and syncs information about automatic payments from your bank, credit card or services like PayPal. After signing up and setting up multifactor authentication, you can begin managing your recurring payments. Rocket Money provides a snapshot of your yearly spending on subscriptions like Spotify and Netflix, and you can also view upcoming payments including a countdown to the due date. A calendar icon takes you to a screen that outlines all payments for the month.
You can cancel subscriptions within the app, view your history of payments or remove them from the Rocket Money list. There is a seven-day free trial, but its recurring fee is on a sliding scale from $4 to $12 per month, billed annually. Rocket Money is easy to use, but the free account lacks some features such as having the app cancel your streaming accounts.
Hiatus is a budget- and bill-managing app that includes a subscription manager feature. When you create an account, you can track your streaming services in an organized «upcoming bills» category. The app also allows you to enter missing subscriptions manually.
Hiatus connects your financial institutions through Plaid, with options that include banks, PayPal or the Google Play Store. In addition to showing all your streaming subscriptions on autopay, the app provides insights on how much you’ve spent at different intervals — seven days, 30 days and the last 365 days. You may opt to set spending limits for your streaming services using the budget feature.
You can use the app for free, but if you sign up for a premium plan at $8 per month, Hiatus offers other features like canceling your subscriptions on your behalf. You also have the option to cancel on your own. Hiatus is available for Android, iOS and web browsers.
Like Hiatus and Rocket Money, Bobby helps you keep up with your streaming subscriptions and how much you’re spending on them. Unlike Hiatus and Rocket Money, Bobby does not require you to link your financial information to track your recurring payments.
Instead, you click through the app’s list of providers to create a list of streaming subscriptions. Then you manually enter information such as how much and how often you pay. We admit this may not be helpful if you can’t remember all of your active services. But with Bobby, you can receive notifications for upcoming due dates, organize the bills into a category and monitor your average spending on streaming. And it’s free.
Foreign currency breakdowns and security features like Touch ID and passcodes are available. Bobby can be downloaded on iOS devices only.
Trim allows you to find, track and cancel subscriptions at no charge. Like Hiatus and Rocket Money, you can connect your financial institution through Plaid, and the app will collate all your recurring subscription payments.
You can view your transaction history for each streamer and cancel a service within the app or by visiting its site directly. Trim is not available as a mobile app, but you can access it on a web browser on your phone or other device.
Streaming service bill tracker FAQs
What about privacy?
Sharing access to your financial information with a third party raises genuine concerns about security. We urge you to review the privacy policies for each service to learn how information is used and stored. With the exception of Bobby, all the services on this list use Plaid to connect your accounts. Plaid does not provide your login credentials to Rocket Money, Trim or Hiatus, so none of the apps receive or store your banking or credit card information.
Why isn’t Mint on this list?
Mint (by Intuit) is a popular user-friendly app that’s used for budgeting. There’s a feature meant to help you track bills and subscriptions, but when I clicked on the Subscriptions tab in the Bills section, none of my subscriptions or recurring payments showed up. I did receive a message saying Mint couldn’t find any subscriptions in my transaction history. Additionally, we’ve seen numerous users reporting that the subscription feature is unreliable.
Are there any other apps you considered?
In addition to Mint and the four tools on this list, we checked out other budget/subscription tracker apps, including PocketGuard, Wallet by Budgetbakers, Billbot, Petal and Everydollar. We decided to highlight the four we discussed here based on robust features, accessibility, fees and ease of use.
PocketGuard syncs with many banks but you’re unable to link PayPal and other third parties like the Google Play Store. Billbot is not available for newer versions of Android, Petal requires you to apply for an account and EveryDollar charges $13 monthly if you don’t want to manually track your financial transactions. To digitally sync Wallet with your financial institutions, you must pay for a premium account.
Technologies
Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Tuesday, Oct. 14
Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Oct. 14.
Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.
Today’s Mini Crossword has an odd vertical shape, with an extra Across clue, and only four Down clues. The clues are not terribly difficult, but one or two could be tricky. Read on if you need the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.
If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.
Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword
Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.
Mini across clues and answers
1A clue: Smokes, informally
Answer: CIGS
5A clue: «Don’t have ___, man!» (Bart Simpson catchphrase)
Answer: ACOW
6A clue: What the vehicle in «lane one» of this crossword is winning?
Answer: RACE
7A clue: Pitt of Hollywood
Answer: BRAD
8A clue: «Yeah, whatever»
Answer: SURE
9A clue: Rd. crossers
Answer: STS
Mini down clues and answers
1D clue: Things to «load» before a marathon
Answer: CARBS
2D clue: Mythical figure who inspired the idiom «fly too close to the sun»
Answer: ICARUS
3D clue: Zoomer around a small track
Answer: GOCART
4D clue: Neighbors of Norwegians
Answer: SWEDES
Technologies
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Technologies
New California Law Wants Companion Chatbots to Tell Kids to Take Breaks
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the new requirements on AI companions into law on Monday.
AI companion chatbots will have to remind users in California that they’re not human under a new law signed Monday by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The law, SB 243, also requires companion chatbot companies to maintain protocols for identifying and addressing cases in which users express suicidal ideation or self-harm. For users under 18, chatbots will have to provide a notification at least every three hours that reminds users to take a break and that the bot is not human.
It’s one of several bills Newsom has signed in recent weeks dealing with social media, artificial intelligence and other consumer technology issues. Another bill signed Monday, AB 56, requires warning labels on social media platforms, similar to those required for tobacco products. Last week, Newsom signed measures requiring internet browsers to make it easy for people to tell websites they don’t want them to sell their data and banning loud advertisements on streaming platforms.
AI companion chatbots have drawn particular scrutiny from lawmakers and regulators in recent months. The Federal Trade Commission launched an investigation into several companies in response to complaints by consumer groups and parents that the bots were harming children’s mental health. OpenAI introduced new parental controls and other guardrails in its popular ChatGPT platform after the company was sued by parents who allege ChatGPT contributed to their teen son’s suicide.
«We’ve seen some truly horrific and tragic examples of young people harmed by unregulated tech, and we won’t stand by while companies continue without necessary limits and accountability,» Newsom said in a statement.
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One AI companion developer, Replika, told CNET that it already has protocols to detect self-harm as required by the new law, and that it is working with regulators and others to comply with requirements and protect consumers.
«As one of the pioneers in AI companionship, we recognize our profound responsibility to lead on safety,» Replika’s Minju Song said in an emailed statement. Song said Replika uses content-filtering systems, community guidelines and safety systems that refer users to crisis resources when needed.
Read more: Using AI as a Therapist? Why Professionals Say You Should Think Again
A Character.ai spokesperson said the company «welcomes working with regulators and lawmakers as they develop regulations and legislation for this emerging space, and will comply with laws, including SB 243.» OpenAI spokesperson Jamie Radice called the bill a «meaningful move forward» for AI safety. «By setting clear guardrails, California is helping shape a more responsible approach to AI development and deployment across the country,» Radice said in an email.
One bill Newsom has yet to sign, AB 1064, would go further by prohibiting developers from making companion chatbots available to children unless the AI companion is «not foreseeably capable of» encouraging harmful activities or engaging in sexually explicit interactions, among other things.
