Saliem Talash: Find and cancel the subscriptions you forgot about

Subscriptions are designed to be easy to start and easy to forget. A free trial in March becomes a monthly charge nobody remembers by December. An app you deleted keeps billing. A software tool the business tried once is still on the company card.

The end of the year is a natural time to clean this up, before a new year of renewals starts. This is a one-hour sweep, using the official help pages from Apple, Google and the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada as they read in October 2026. I'm Saliem Talash, I build practical tools for small businesses in Toronto, and this works the same for a household budget or a one-person business.

Step 1: make the list

Before cancelling anything, find everything. Subscriptions hide in four places:

Your phone's app store (Apple or Google Play).
Your card statements. Look at the last three months, line by line.
Your bank account, for pre-authorized debits that come straight out of chequing.
Your email. Search for words like "receipt," "renewal" and "subscription." Apple's own help page suggests searching your email for "receipt from Apple" or "invoice from Apple" if you cannot find a subscription.

Put every result in a simple table: name, amount, how often it bills, which card or account it uses, and a keep or cancel column. The table is the useful part. It turns a vague feeling of "too many subscriptions" into a number.

Step 2: subscriptions billed by Apple

Apple's help page gives the steps for each device. On an iPhone:

Open Settings and tap your name.
Tap Subscriptions.
Tap the subscription.
Tap Cancel Subscription. You might need to scroll down to find it.

Apple adds a useful detail: "If there is no Cancel button or you see an expiration message in red text, the subscription is already canceled."

On a Mac, you do it from the App Store: click your name at the bottom of the sidebar, then follow the account pages to the subscription. On a Windows PC, Apple says to use the Apple Music or Apple TV app. You can also cancel on the web at account.apple.com.

If you cannot find it, check which Apple Account appears on the receipt. If it is a family member's account, Apple says they have to cancel it themselves: "You can't cancel a family member's subscription."

Step 3: subscriptions on Google Play

Google's help page starts with a point worth knowing: Play subscriptions "are for an indefinite term" and charge at the beginning of each billing cycle "unless you unsubscribe." And in bold: "When you uninstall an app, your subscription won't cancel."

On a computer, Google's steps are:

Go to subscriptions in Google Play (signed in to the right Google Account).
Find the subscription and click Manage.
Click Cancel subscription, and pick a reason in the pop-up.

If something is missing, Google suggests it may be on a different account, so switch accounts and look again. That is common in households where a child or partner signed up on their own account but with a shared card.

What cancelling actually does

Cancelling usually does not mean losing access immediately. Google gives a clear example: if you buy a one-year subscription on January 1 for $10 and cancel on July 1, you keep access until December 31, and you will not be charged the next $10 on January 1. Some cases may qualify for a refund under Google Play's refund policies, but generally, cancelling just stops the next charge.

So there is no reason to wait for the "right" moment. Cancel as soon as you decide, and keep using what you have already paid for.

Step 4: subscriptions taken straight from your bank account

Some bills do not go through an app store or a card. Some are set up as a pre-authorized debit (PAD), an agreement that lets the company withdraw money from your bank account.

The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC) explains how to stop one:

Tell the biller in writing. FCAC says: "To cancel a pre-authorized debit agreement, you must notify the biller in writing. Make sure you keep a copy of this notice." Your agreement should explain how to cancel.
Check that it stopped. After cancelling, watch your account. If debits continue, contact the biller. If you are not satisfied, FCAC says you have 90 days to seek reimbursement through your financial institution.
Know what cancelling does not do. FCAC is careful here: cancelling the debit agreement "doesn't cancel your contract with the biller" or the amount you owe. It only changes how you pay. If you want to end the service itself, end the contract too.

Two more points from the same page:

If a pre-authorized amount varies, the biller must give you written notice of the amount at least 10 days before taking it, unless you agreed to waive or shorten that.
If you spot an incorrect or unauthorized debit, tell your financial institution within 90 days of the withdrawal. FCAC says your institution does not have to reimburse you after that.

If you only want to stop a single payment, FCAC notes you can ask your financial institution for a "stop payment."

Step 5: decide, then automate the next review

Go back to the table. For each row, ask one question: would I sign up for this today, at this price? If the answer is no, cancel it now.

For a small business, add a second question: does anyone still log in to it? Software seats for people who have left are one of the most common quiet costs.

Then make the review automatic:

Put a recurring calendar reminder in for the first week of every quarter.
When you start a free trial, put a reminder in for two days before it ends.
Use one card for subscriptions, so the statement doubles as the list.

The whole sweep takes about an hour the first time and fifteen minutes after that. I keep simple household and small-business routines like this on my own site, and longer explainers on ZELR.

Sources

Drafted with AI assistance.