Find subscriptions
How to check for subscriptions and recurring payments on your credit card
Export as much of your card history as the site will give you — a year if you can — then look for the same merchant appearing on a regular rhythm: monthly, every four weeks, quarterly or once a year. That rhythm is what makes a charge recurring, not the size of it. A long export matters for one thing in particular: an annual renewal appears only once, so a single month cannot show it to you.
Most card sites will export a CSV; a PDF statement works too, but one month of it cannot show you a rhythm. The five passes below are how to read the file once you have it.
Read your statement in five passes
- 1
Download the transactions, not the summary
A statement PDF summary hides individual charges. Export the full transaction list (CSV where your card offers it) so every line is visible.
- 2
Pull as much history as the site will give you
An annual subscription bills once a year, so a single month cannot reveal it to you. A year of transactions puts every renewal in front of your own eyes at least once — which is a different thing from software calling a charge annual, and the note below the steps says where that line falls.
- 3
Sort by amount to cluster the repeats
Many recurring charges repeat at the same amount, so sorting by amount clusters them next to one-off purchases. Not all of them do: usage-based bills, tax changes and price rises all move the figure, so scan for a repeating DATE as well as a repeating amount.
- 4
Watch the statement-close date
Annual renewals and “anniversary” charges cluster around the date you first subscribed — flag anything that recurs on that cadence.
- 5
Decode the descriptors
The merchant name is often a billing entity. Strip payment-rail prefixes and check Apple, Google, and PayPal subscriptions for anything you can’t place.
What a long export does, and what it doesn’t
A year of transactions is the right thing to scan by eye, because you only need to see a once-a-year charge once to recognise it. Software is stricter. From two months of statements LowScout can surface a repeating charge for you to review; it needs three or more to confirm the rhythm on its own — and it will not announce an annual renewal on the strength of a year of statements, because one yearly charge is not yet a rhythm. Calling a charge annual takes repeated evidence across years, or your own confirmation of what it is.
So do both, and expect different things from each: read the long export yourself for the once-a-year charges, and upload what you have for everything that repeats more often, with the transactions shown behind each one.
Don’t stop at one card
Subscriptions spread across whichever card was handy at signup, plus any debit card or checking account with automatic payments. Once you’ve done one card, repeat for the others — each exports separately.
Common questions
- Where do subscriptions show up on a credit card statement?
- They appear as ordinary transaction lines, not in a separate section. Use the full transaction list rather than the statement summary, then look for the same merchant returning on a regular rhythm: monthly, every four weeks, quarterly or yearly. Subscriptions bought through Apple, Google or PayPal usually show under that company’s name, so open those accounts’ own subscription lists for anything you cannot place.
- How can I tell a subscription from a one-off purchase?
- A one-off purchase appears once. A recurring charge comes back from the same merchant on a repeating date, usually at a similar amount, though a usage-based bill or a price change can move the figure. A single charge does not prove a subscription, and a repeating one is not automatically unwanted — you decide which ones to keep.
- What if a recurring charge is one I do not recognise?
- An unrecognised charge is not necessarily fraud. The name on a statement can be the billing company rather than the brand you signed up with, so decoding the descriptor and checking family members and old free trials can help. If you still cannot identify a charge, or believe it is unauthorised, contact your card issuer right away.
Keep going
Bank websites and merchant flows change. If something here has drifted, email lowscoutsupport@gmail.com — we reply within 2 business days.