Build a Small Service That Connects Subscription Records to Action

A subscription-management service built over a few weekends

In April 2026, Reddit user u/Cehyy released SubTrack, a personal subscription-management service built alone. By the creator’s account, it was a web service made over several weekends. It launched free, with paid features to be decided after seeing how people actually used it.

People enter their subscription details manually. The creator said they can then see monthly and annual spending, the next payment date, email reminders before a charge, paused subscriptions, and cancellation guidance for more than 45 services.

Not connecting bank accounts or card transactions was central to the product. The creator claimed initial entry takes about two minutes, but one user argued that if manual entry is required, calendar-app reminders may be enough. Another said automatically finding subscriptions was the important feature. The criticism was that the service cannot automatically uncover forgotten subscriptions, and people must register every new one themselves.

There is plenty to track in South Korea. A 2024 survey cited by Ipsos found that 90% of respondents had used subscription services, with an average of 3.4 services and monthly spending of about KRW 40,000. That monthly amount may look small, but it becomes about KRW 480,000 over a year.

The problem is not only failing to know the total. Of 165 consumer-harm cases related to free trials and recurring payments reviewed by the Korea Consumer Agency (한국소비자원), a public consumer-protection body, 34.0% involved inadequate notice before automatic payment conversion, while 32.1% involved restrictions or obstacles to cancellation during the free period. South Korea already has Subscription Check, a manual-entry service, and Tokgu, which reads payment-history images. A new service therefore needs to make the action after recording a subscription clearer than a simple list does.

Work stops when people switch tools

Consider Lee Ji-yeon, a 38-year-old office worker with a spouse and one elementary-school child. She pays for video services, music, storage, her child’s learning service, and delivery memberships through different cards and app stores.

When a payment goes through, she sees a card notification. She then finds the receipt again in email, writes annual payment dates into a calendar, and tells her family about shared costs through a messaging app. When she wants to organize everything, she copies the service name, price, and payment method into a note or spreadsheet again.

Cancellation creates another break in the work. She checks the service name in the spreadsheet, goes to that service or app store, finds her password, reads the cancellation terms, and saves the completion screen separately. If she misses a reminder or confuses who is paying, the task gets pushed into the next month.

A new subscription-management service should reduce these switches. Someone could enter one line such as “video service, KRW 17,000, every 12th, shared with family,” fill in the needed fields, and then choose directly before the next payment: “keep,” “split with family,” “compare a cheaper plan,” or “see the cancellation path.”

That keeps recording and deciding in the same place. For an annual payment, the person can review it from one month ahead. For a free trial, they can get a reminder before it becomes paid. Once cancellation is complete, they can record the completion date and the end date of access.

Some work still remains with people. A manual service cannot discover payments a person has forgotten. Some subscriptions, especially those paid through the App Store or Google Play, must be cancelled by the user directly. A person must also decide whether someone in the family will keep using the service, whether there is a cancellation penalty, or whether stored data needs to be moved first.

So the most important thing in a first product is not a polished monthly chart. It is a flow that lets someone who has recorded a subscription complete one real decision before the next payment. If people are not willing to pay for that, do not build more screens first. Reconsider which action—reminders, splitting, comparison, or cancellation—is most urgent.

Abroad, people pay for action after the record

Bobby, from the Netherlands, began for iPhone users who did not want to connect their banks. People enter prices and renewal dates themselves and receive reminders. It charges one-time amounts of roughly KRW 1,000 to KRW 4,000 to remove subscription limits and unlock all features.

On the US App Store, it has about 8,000 ratings and a 4.7 out of 5 score. It reduces the resistance to paying another monthly subscription fee for a subscription-management app, but one-time sales alone can make it hard to fund long-term maintenance.

Australia’s SubTracker.com.au takes a middle path: instead of a continuing bank connection, it asks users to upload a statement file or photo once. It identifies candidates for recurring charges, and users approve only the correct entries. It sells tracking for about KRW 27,000 and a one-time organization-and-cancellation bundle for about KRW 94,000.

The company says its median paid user has 15 subscriptions and spends about KRW 2.65 million a year, but this is company-reported data and needs separate verification. The important point is that it creates an intermediate step—reading a statement once—between a high-privacy-burden always-on bank connection and the hassle of entering everything manually.

Rocket Money in the United States sits at the other end. It connects banks and cards to find recurring payments, and offers cancellation support plus mobile and internet bill negotiation to paid members. It sells actual execution, not just a list.

The company says it has more than 10 million members and has processed about 2.5 million subscription cancellations, but these are company figures. Users gain convenience but must connect financial information. For bill negotiation, they may pay 35% to 60% of their first-year savings as a fee. As automated discovery and execution support expand, the demands for trust and human handling grow too.

Things you can build right away

Free-trial end guard

• What it does: When someone enters a free-trial start date, it tells them the cancellation path and terms to check before the trial converts to a paid plan.
• Who uses it: Office workers who often sign up for one-month free trials of video, fitness, or learning services.
• Why now: Inadequate notice of automatic conversion and cancellation obstacles are causing real consumer harm, so the action point is clearer than a simple post-payment reminder.
• First screen: Show a list of “trials about to become paid,” with buttons for “keep using” and “see how to cancel.”

Split family subscription costs

• What it does: Splits subscriptions paid by one person among family members, and tracks each person’s monthly amount and whether they use the service.
• Who uses it: Siblings or cohabitants who share video services and storage but use different payment cards.
• Why now: A typical household budget app may show the total payment, but it does not continue into managing who pays how much and who actually uses the service.
• First screen: Show each family member’s amount due this month and statuses for “using,” “not using,” and “settled.”

A recurring-cost review inbox for small shops

• What it does: Brings together renewal dates and responsible people for ordering software, security equipment, internet, music, and tax services.
• Who uses it: Owners of neighborhood hair salons or side-dish shops that have begun using several delivery-order and booking tools.
• Why now: For recurring business costs, checking price and usage before contract renewal matters more than cancellation.
• First screen: Show costs renewing within 30 days in price order, with “keep,” “check price,” and “ask the person responsible.”

Organize a card statement once

• What it does: Finds candidates for recurring payments in a card-statement photo or file, then lets the user save only the entries they need.
• Who uses it: Freelancers and privacy-sensitive people who do not want to connect accounts but also do not want to enter subscriptions one by one.
• Why now: Tokgu in South Korea and SubTracker in Australia show that image or statement input can be a practical compromise between those two approaches.
• First screen: Put an “upload statement” button beside a clear explanation of whether the file is deleted after analysis and what information is stored.

What to test in 30 minutes today

Show a paper sketch of the first screen to one person who has recently used a free trial or annual subscription. Ask them to enter five real subscriptions. If they finish entering them within five minutes, immediately choose one of reminders, splitting, comparison, or cancellation, and name an amount above KRW 0 that they would pay instead of using a spreadsheet, it may be worth building a first product that makes only that one action work next weekend.

Why this matters where you are

Check whether people in your market lose track of free-trial conversions, shared subscription costs, or recurring business expenses. The payment platforms, cancellation rules, and willingness to connect financial accounts may differ from the examples here. You can test the relevant action before building a full subscription dashboard.