A small magazine about things that claim to work
6 pieces
What things cost over time, what renews, and what the free tier is actually for.
What free actually means
A plan that never expires, a trial with the expiry buried, and a reduced-database version that is quietly worse rather than visibly smaller. Only the first is free, and only two apps here offer it.
What renews, and at what
We tried to establish the renewal price for nine subscriptions. For four of them we could not, so we have said so rather than guessing.
The annual figure
The same arithmetic, performed by seven companies, priced from $34.99 to around $209. Over three years that is a difference worth a moment's thought.
The exit
We subscribed to nine things and then cancelled all of them. The distance between the easiest and the hardest exit was about forty minutes and one phone call.
Twelve months of notices
Eleven services raised prices on us in twelve months. Not one of them called it a price rise in the subject line, and three raised prices twice.
The maths of the upsell
An extended warranty is an insurance product sold at the till by somebody on commission. Here is how to work out, in about a minute, whether the one in front of you is the ninth.