What price increase should I enter?

Look at what this provider has actually charged you rather than at a general inflation figure. Streaming, software and membership prices have tended to rise faster than prices in general, which is why the field starts at 5%. If you can find two old receipts, the annualized increase between them is a better input than any assumption.

Why is the headline the invested value rather than what I paid?

Because the sum of the payments answers a question nobody is asking. The choice is between paying and not paying, and if you had not paid, the money would have been somewhere earning. That comparison makes the cost look larger, but it is the one that is actually fair to both sides.

Does this assume I invest the money I save?

Yes, and that assumption is worth being honest about. If a cancelled subscription simply gets spent on something else, the invested figure is theoretical and the total paid is the number that matters. Both are on the page for exactly that reason.

What return should I use?

Something you could realistically earn on money you might need, read as a real return above inflation, since the price increase field is doing the inflation work separately. Move it a point either way and watch the twenty-year figure move — that spread is the honest range, and it is wide.

Should I run this once per subscription or once for all of them?

Either, but they answer different questions. One run per service tells you which one to cancel. One run on the combined monthly total tells you what the whole habit costs, at the price of a single blended increase rate that no individual provider charges.

Why does the table stop at twenty years?

Because past that the assumptions stop carrying weight. A provider that still exists, a price that keeps rising at the same rate and a return that holds for two decades are already three strong claims. Twenty years is long enough to show the shape of the curve and short enough that the inputs are arguable rather than fictional.

Subscription Cost Calculator — Lifetime Cost

Cost by horizon

What the subscription costs at each horizon, and what the same payments would have been worth invested instead. The twenty-year row is the one the headline uses.

Total paid and forgone investment value on a $18.00 monthly subscription rising 5.0% a year, against a 7.0% annual return.
Horizon	Total paid	Invested value	Gap
5 years	$1,221	$1,439	$218
10 years	$2,779	$3,854	$1,075
20 years	$7,304	$13,857	$6,553

Figures are cumulative from today to the end of each horizon, with the price increase compounded monthly. No tax, no fees and no inflation adjustment — enter a real return if you want the answer in today’s money.

A subscription is not a fixed payment. At a 5% annual increase the charge is about 2.6 times its starting price by the twentieth year.
Summing the payments understates the cost, because the money would have kept earning after each one was made.
Five years is not the horizon that decides it. The same charge gives up $218 over five years and about $6,553 over twenty.
Cancelling is worth the whole remaining stream, not this month’s charge — which is why the decision reads better from this table than from a statement line.

How the subscription cost calculator works

A subscription is priced to look small. At $18 a month the annual figure is $216, and that multiplication is where most people stop. This calculator carries the charge forward month by month for five, ten and twenty years, raises the price along the way at a rate you set, and puts the total next to what the same payments would have been worth invested instead.

Price increases compound, and that is the first thing a thin subscription calculator leaves out. The provider raises the price, usually every year. At the default 5%, an $18 charge is about $47.57 by the last month of year twenty, and the twenty-year total is about $7,304 rather than the $4,320 you get by multiplying $18 by 240 months. The increase adds nearly 70% to the bill without ever appearing as a decision you made. It is applied monthly, as the twelfth root of the annual rate, so the price drifts up instead of jumping on an anniversary the model invented.

The second thing is the comparison figure. Adding up the payments answers the wrong question: the money did not stop existing when you spent it, and had you kept it, each payment would have gone on earning until the end of the horizon. So the honest counterfactual is the future value of the payment stream, not its sum. At a 7% return the twenty-year stream is worth about $13,857 against $7,304 paid, and that gap of roughly $6,553 is the real price of the subscription.

The math

The model is a monthly loop rather than an annual formula, because both rates act monthly. The annual return and the annual increase are each converted to a monthly rate as the twelfth root, so twelve months of compounding reproduces the annual figure exactly instead of overshooting it. Each month the current payment is added to the running total, the invested balance grows by one month of return and then receives the payment, and the payment steps up for the following month. Crediting the payment after the growth means it earns nothing in the month it is made, which is the conservative reading.

Nothing is adjusted for inflation and nothing is taxed. To read the answer in today’s money, enter a real return — one net of inflation — and treat the price increase as the amount by which this provider outpaces everything else. If the growth would be taxed, or the fund charges a fee, take both off the return before entering it: a single point off the return costs far more than a point of the twenty-year figure.

The horizons are fixed at five, ten and twenty years, and the headline uses the last one. Everything is per subscription. Run it once for each service, or once on the combined monthly total — in which case the increase you enter is a blended average that no individual provider actually charges.

Worked example

At the defaults — $18 a month, a 5% annual increase, a 7% return — the charge is $216 a year today. Over five years you pay about $1,221 against an invested $1,439, a gap of $218 that nobody should reorganize their life over. Over ten years, about $2,779 paid and a gap of about $1,075. Over twenty, $7,304 paid against $13,857.

Now set the increase to zero and run it again. Twenty years of a flat $18 costs $4,320, and the invested alternative is worth about $9,136. The difference between the two runs — about $2,984 more paid and roughly $4,700 more forgone — is what the price rises alone cost. None of it is visible on a statement, because each individual rise is a couple of dollars.

Key terms

Recurring charge: A payment that renews on its own until you stop it. The defining feature is that no decision is needed to keep paying, which is why the total goes unexamined.
Compounded increase: A rise applied to the already-risen price rather than the original one. Ten years at 5% leaves the price 63% higher, not 50% higher.
Future value: What a series of payments would be worth at the end of a horizon if each had been invested when it was made and left alone.
Opportunity cost: The difference between that future value and the amount actually handed over. It is the part of the cost that never appears on a bill.

Subscription Cost Calculator (2026)