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U.S. adults really love their TV and music streaming apps, but they’re less committed to their self-improvement and personal-care digital subscriptions.
A survey of 1,005 American consumers commissioned by Forbes Advisor and conducted by market research company Prolific found the most popular type of digital subscriptions—and thus the ones perhaps least likely to get dropped—are streaming services, which 90% of consumers subscribe to, followed by delivery apps (72%) and music services (60%).
Conversely, the least popular subscription categories are women’s apps, men’s apps, wellness apps and dating apps (with just 3% favoring them), followed by meal kits (6%) and fitness/weight loss and education (7% each).
If you find yourself holding on to unused or underutilized subscriptions, the New Year is a good time to scrutinize what you’re paying for. You may be able to trim hundreds of dollars in annual expenses.
But people just may not be paying attention—meaning companies may be collecting money from you every month without providing value in return. Our survey found that 83% of consumers don’t conduct regular, comprehensive reviews of their digital subscriptions.
Read More: Best Credit Cards For Streaming Services
Key Findings
Here are some more top findings in our survey of the digital subscription landscape:
- Streaming, music and live TV subscriptions are deemed most important by Americans
- Self-improvement and personal care subscriptions (such as meditation apps and weight loss apps) are most at risk of being cut in 2023
- Consumers are most resistant to price increases for food delivery, cloud storage and live TV subscriptions
- 83% believe some services are quiet about renewals in hopes consumers don’t think about being subscribed. Amazon Prime, The New York Times and Uber One were cited as being the “quietest” about renewals
Entertainment Subscriptions Are the Most Important to American Consumers
In the survey, four of the five subscription categories deemed most important by Americans are entertainment-related: streaming, music, live TV and gaming. Delivery also makes the top five.
The least important among the 20 subscription categories are pets, cloud storage and fitness/weight loss.
But what people say they desire and how they act when cutting subscription services may prove different.
Most Popular Subscription Categories
While people questioned in the survey cited streaming as the most coveted subscription category, Yahya Mokhtarzada says when it comes to cutting bills, his company is seeing consumers ax streaming subscriptions first. Mokhtarzadan is co-founder and chief revenue officer of Rocket Money (formerly Truebill), a personal finance app that helps people manage subscriptions.
“Streaming subscriptions are certainly valuable to Americans but, interestingly, these services are the first on the chopping block when users are cutting down,” Mokhtarzada says. “Video streaming specifically saw the highest cancellation rate in 2022 among Rocket Money users. We’ve seen a steady increase in monthly video streaming prices, which can motivate users to take stock and cancel unused accounts.”
For example, the Apple, Disney and Netflix video streaming services all hiked their prices in 2022.
Consumers Get the Most Value from Content Subscriptions
Although some consumers may be eyeing cancellation of streaming services, those questioned in the Forbes Advisor survey indicated that streaming services is the most important digital subscription category, followed by music, delivery and gaming.
More broadly, content subscriptions—including education, books/audio and news—occupy six of the top 10 spots among highly valued digital subscriptions.
But a price change could change that value proposition. There are some types of services in which consumers are more open to a price increase than others. Dating, meal kit and wellness subscriptions enjoy the most room for price increases, according to the survey, while prices for food delivery, cloud storage and live TV services are maxed out in the minds of many consumers.
Categories Consumers Get the Most Value For Their Dollar
A Recession Could Put Pressure on Subscriptions in 2023
If the U.S. and the rest of the world enters a recession in 2023, as many economists predict, self-improvement and personal care subscriptions are most at risk of being cut, the survey shows. So much for those New Year’s resolutions, huh?
The subscriptions consumers in our survey said they were most likely to cut in 2023 are:
- Calm
- Tinder
- WeightWatchers
- IPSY
- Dollar Shave Club
- Harry’s
- Grubhub+
- The New York Times
- Audible
- HelloFresh
Mokhtarzada says this line of thinking matches what Rocket Money has witnessed among its users.
“Monthly spending on personal care and wellness has been steadily decreasing,” he says. “When we see people concerned with economic uncertainty, luxury expenses like fitness, meditation, weight loss apps or skin care tend to be one of the first spending areas to decrease.”
The subscriptions consumers in our survey said they were least likely to cut in 2023 are:
- iCloud storage
- Spotify
- Amazon Prime
- Hulu
- Netflix
- Google Cloud storage
- HBO Max
- xBox Game Pass
- Playstation Plus
- Apple TV
20 Most Popular Subscription Services
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Bottom Line
Streaming is the king of subscriptions, with the rest of the kingdom populated by music, live TV, gaming and books/audio. But when you’re looking to slash subscription costs, be sure to look at all of your subscriptions, not just a select few. Ask yourself this: How much value are you getting out of each subscription?
“With higher inflation, it’s especially important to take stock of subscriptions and overall spending to weed out unneeded expenses. Every dollar counts, especially with subscription prices creeping up,” Mokhtarzada says.
Why is it important to comb through all of your subscriptions, not just some of them? Because you may be spending more on them than you realize. A 2022 analysis by C+R Research found that consumers estimated their total monthly spending on subscriptions at $86, when the actual amount was $219.
“When you see all of your subscriptions in one place, most people are shocked at how many they have,” Mokhtarzada said.
Methodology
This online survey of 1,005 U.S. adults was commissioned by Forbes Advisor and conducted by market research company Prolific. The margin of error is +/- 3.1 points with 95% confidence. Data was collected Dec. 20, 2022.
