12 Tips to Manage and Avoid Unwanted Subscriptions

A federal court blocked FTC ‘click to cancel’ rules that promised to make it easier to cancel subscriptions

Edward C. Baig,

Updated July 10, 2025

AARP

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En español

Published March 29, 2023

/ Updated July 10, 2025

an illustration of a man pushing a red cancel button on top of a smartphone

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You’ve been seduced with free trial offers and goaded into subscriptions for everything from dietary supplements and gym memberships to newspapers and video streaming services. Now you’re trying to trim your expenses or get out from under those too-good-to-be-true deals.

Visiting many businesses to cancel in person is nearly impossible, and you reckon hell will freeze over before you reach a live customer service representative on the phone. In the meantime, recurring charges keep piling up for products and services you don’t even remember agreeing to pay for.

And the last line from the Eagles’ “Hotel California” is playing in your head: “You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.”

More transparency is ahead

To make matters worse, a federal appeals court blocked a previously adopted “click to cancel” rule that the Federal Trade Commission said would make it just as easy for you to bail on these subscriptions as it was for you to sign up for them and go a long way toward rescuing consumers from the never-ending struggle to cancel unwanted subscription plans. The changes had been set to go into effect on July 14.

Marketers often fail to make adequate disclosures to consumers about their payment obligations and bill them repeatedly without their consent, the FTC says. The agency receives thousands of consumer complaints about these practices each year.

Negative option rules under scrutiny

One key component under the click to cancel FTC rules: Businesses that let you sign up for a subscription through a website must afford you the opportunity to cancel that subscription on the same website with the same number of steps.

The agency’s proposals hoped to amend negative option rules enacted in 1973. Negative option plans refer to situations where customers are presumed to continue to accept the terms of an offer or agreement until they take affirmative steps to decline it, the FTC says.

The rules would allow sellers to try to upsell consumers looking to cancel their enrollment. But sellers would be required to ask consumers if they’re willing to hear such promotional pitches.

If not, the seller must accept a “No” without pressing again. Companies also would be required to send annual reminders to customers before automatically renewing a service for anything other than physical goods.

Subscriptions deluge consumers

Subscription overload is a problem for many consumers, who generally don’t have a good fix on just how much money they’re shelling out.

Consumers surveyed by C+R Research in 2022 estimated they spent $86 a month on subscription services. In reality, they spent $219 a month. One in 5 surveyed reported feeling overwhelmed because they had so many subscriptions.

Moreover, 74 percent of respondents said forgetting about recurring charges is too easy. More than 40 percent reported still paying for a monthly subscription they no longer use, including a quarter of boomers.

Here are some tips to lessen the likelihood you’ll get tangled in a subscription or membership mess.

Do this before you buy

1. Read the terms and conditions. In short, know what you’re signing up for. How long is any trial period? What’s the procedure for canceling once that period expires? If cancellation and return policies appear to be too rigid, don’t buy.

2. Do your research. What are other people saying about the company selling or pitching the product? Read user reviews. The FTC recommends searching for the company’s name with the words “scam” or “complain” to see if anything worrisome surfaces.

3. Consider how to cancel future shipments or services. Make sure you can opt out of or cut down on shipments of future products you don’t need. Will you have enough time to halt shipments?

4. Be wary of pre-checked boxes. By default, companies may check boxes that grant them permission to charge you past a free trial date or that sign you up for other products. Uncheck boxes at odds with what you have in mind.

Watch for this after you’ve said ‘Yes’

5. Mark your calendars. Make note of important deadlines and due dates to give yourself ample time to cancel. Use your email, reminders or calendar app to set reminders for each of your purchases, especially ones that might renew annually.

6. Monitor your credit and debit card statements. Be on the lookout for charges you may not be aware of or have unwittingly authorized. Does the price seem right? As the FTC spells out, “If you have to pay for shipping fees to get your ‘free’ trial, it’s not really free.”

7. Demand auto-renewal notices. Even if you appreciate the convenience of having a service you like automatically renewed, you’ll want to receive notices when your subscription is about to lapse.

Don’t respond to any renewal notice that requests credit card information, the FTC warns. It could be for a product you’ve already canceled or a scammer looking to steal your info.

8. Has the price gone up? You may have signed on at a promotional rate. Make sure you’re OK with any price increases.

How to quit your peskiest purchases

9. Contact your credit card or debit company. If you’re unable to stop renewal of a product or service directly from the seller, write a letter and/or file a dispute claim with your credit card company. Save any emails, letters, notes or other records that document your desire to cancel.

10. Consider stand-alone services that help manage recurring charges. Third-party subscription tracker apps and web services can help you track expenses and control recurring charges. While some of these apps are free, you may have to accept ads or pay a monthly or yearly fee to monitor more than a limited number of subscriptions.

11. Seek help from your email provider. Google’s popular Gmail, for one, has begun rolling out a “manage subscriptions” feature on the web and on Android and iOS devices, to help you deep-six subscription emails you no longer want. In this new view, which you can get to by clicking the navigation bar in the top left corner of your inbox, you’ll find active subscriptions sorted by the most frequent senders, along with the number of emails they sent you in the prior few weeks. Click on a sender and Google says you’ll be able to unsubscribe in a single click. Gmail will send the unsubscribe request on your behalf.

12. Report fraud to the government. Contact the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov or reach out to your state attorney general.

This story, originally published March 29, 2023, was updated to reflect a court blocking FTC “click to cancel” rules and the rollout of Gmail’s manage subscriptions feature.

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Edward C. Baig covers technology and other consumer topics. He previously worked for USA Today, BusinessWeek, U.S. News & World Report and Fortune, and is author of Macs for Dummies and coauthor of iPhone for Dummies and iPad for Dummies. Follow him on LinkedIn; Threads; and X, formerly known as Twitter.