I Cancelled 3 SaaS Subscriptions Last Month
Some tools don't need a monthly fee. Here's what I replaced and what I kept paying for.
I was reviewing my credit card statement and counted 14 active software subscriptions. Some I use daily. Others I forgot I was paying for.
Three of them were doing things I could do for free in a browser. So I cancelled them.
Here's what went and what stayed.
What I Cancelled
Image compression service — $9/month
I was paying for a service that compresses images before uploading to my CMS. It worked fine. But it was doing exactly one thing: making images smaller.
Browser-based image compression does the same job. I drag, it compresses, I download. No account, no API key, no monthly fee.
The paid service had a nice WordPress plugin. But I switched to compressing before upload instead of after, and honestly the results are identical.
Saved: $108/year
PDF manipulation tool — $12/month
I was merging and splitting PDFs maybe three times a week. The desktop app was solid — fast, reliable, good interface.
But $144 a year to combine PDFs? That felt excessive once I found browser-based alternatives that do the same thing without installing anything.
The desktop app was slightly faster for huge files. But for my typical 5-20 page documents, the difference is negligible.
Saved: $144/year
JSON prettifier extension — $4/month
Yeah, I was paying for a browser extension that formats JSON. I'm embarrassed too.
In my defense, it had some nice features — schema validation, tree view, dark mode. But a free JSON formatter does 95% of what I need. Format, validate, done.
Saved: $48/year
What I Kept Paying For
Not everything should be free. Some subscriptions earn their keep.
Design tool (Figma) — $15/month. Collaboration features, component libraries, version history. No free tool comes close for team design work.
Code editor (JetBrains) — $25/month. I could use VS Code. I choose not to. The refactoring tools and debugging save me hours.
Cloud hosting — $20/month. Obvious. Can't host production apps on free tiers forever.
Password manager — $3/month. Security isn't where I cut corners.
How I Decide What's Worth Paying For
My rule is simple: does this tool give me something I can't get elsewhere, or does it save me meaningful time?
A PDF merger saves me zero time compared to a free one. An IDE with smart refactoring saves me hours per week.
Also: if a free tool does the job but requires me to think about it every time ("which free site was it again? does it still work?"), that friction adds up. Bookmark your free tools. Build a workflow. Then the friction disappears.
The Subscription Audit
Try this: go through your subscriptions and sort them into three buckets.
- Essential — you'd immediately re-subscribe if you cancelled
- Convenient — nice to have, but free alternatives exist
- Forgotten — you didn't know you were still paying
Cancel bucket 3 immediately. Test free alternatives for bucket 2 for one month. If you miss the paid tool, re-subscribe. No harm done.
I found $300/year in bucket 2 and 3 combined. Your number might be higher.
The point isn't to never pay for software. Good tools are worth paying for. The point is to make sure you're paying for value, not habit. A lot of tasks that feel like they need a dedicated app are actually "compress this file" or "format this text" — stuff a browser tool handles just fine.