OTT subscription audit: how to check what you pay for Netflix, Prime and JioHotstar

Step 1: list every subscription you pay for

Look in four places: your bank and card alerts for repeat charges, your UPI app's AutoPay list, the Google Play or App Store subscriptions page, and any bundle that came with your phone plan or credit card. Write each one down with its price and how often it renews. Most people find at least one they forgot.

Bundles are easy to miss because you don't pay for them directly. A streaming app included in a mobile recharge or a card benefit still has a cost, and it often renews at a higher price after the offer ends.

Step 2: find the hidden ones

Hidden subscriptions usually hide in two places: UPI AutoPay mandates and app store billing. Every UPI app now shows all the AutoPay mandates on your bank account, and the Play Store lists every subscription billed through Google. Check both, because a plan started as a free trial often lands in one of them.

1. 1

   UPI AutoPay

   Open your UPI app, go to AutoPay or Mandates. Our guide to cancelling UPI AutoPay has the menu paths.

2. 2

   Google Play

   Play Store, tap your profile picture, then Payments & subscriptions, then Subscriptions.

3. 3

   App Store

   Settings, tap your name, then Subscriptions.

4. 4

   Card statements

   Search the last three months for the same merchant on the same date.

Step 3: price each one per month, then per hour watched

Turn every plan into a monthly price, then divide by the hours you actually watched last month. A ₹649 plan you watch for 20 hours costs about ₹32 an hour. The same plan watched for 2 hours costs ₹325 an hour. That second number is the one that tells you what to drop.

Step 4: keep one, rotate the rest

Keep the one service you watch every week. For the others, subscribe for a month when there's a show or a match you want, binge it, and cancel before it renews. Rotating two or three services this way usually costs a fraction of paying for all of them all year.

Annual plans are cheaper per month, but only if you'd have kept the service all twelve months. If you only watch during a cricket season or one big release, monthly is often cheaper in practice.

Step 5: cancel before the renewal date

Cancel at least a day or two before the renewal date, inside the service's own account settings. You usually keep watching until the end of the period you paid for. If the plan pays through UPI AutoPay, cancel the mandate too, so nothing can charge you again.

See every subscription and get a nudge before it renews