SK
Sarah K.
Freelance UI/UX Designer, Stockholm
The situation
Running a solo design practice means subscriptions spread across personal and business cards with no central record. Sarah was paying for Figma, Canva Pro, Adobe Express, Unsplash Premium, and three additional tools she had forgotten about. Two of those forgotten tools had already charged for the full year without her noticing.
What she did
She added all her subscriptions to CostLoop and set 30-day renewal reminders on every annual plan. She also stored each tool's cancellation link directly in the dashboard so she would not have to hunt for it when a renewal came up.
The result
She cancelled two unused tools, recovering $156 per year that had been quietly charging. Three weeks before her Figma annual renewal, she received a reminder and used the lead time to contact Figma and negotiate a 20% discount on the renewal. Her total savings in the first three months came to $247.
$385 / $289
Monthly spend before / after
$247
Annual savings
2
Unused tools cancelled
MT
Marcus T.
Co-founder, 12-person marketing agency, London
The situation
A 12-person marketing agency runs on 30 or more SaaS tools spread across client projects and internal operations. Billing is distributed across 4 different cards, there is no single view of total spend, and no formal review process for renewals. The tipping point came when a $4,800 per year project management tool auto-renewed without any review or notice.
What he did
Marcus imported the agency's full subscription list via CSV, then worked through the stack assigning a named owner to every tool. He set up a monthly health score review so the team had a regular forcing function to evaluate whether each tool was still earning its place.
The result
The review surfaced 6 tools with no active owner - meaning no one in the agency was accountable for them and no one was sure they were being used. Four were cancelled outright. Two were consolidated to lower tiers. Annual savings came to $6,200. The agency's subscription health score moved from 42 to 78 in 60 days.
34
Subscriptions tracked
34
Tool owners assigned
$6,200
Annual savings
42 to 78
Health score in 60 days
JR
James R.
Operations Manager, 8-person e-commerce team, Berlin
The situation
Different team members had signed up for tools independently over two years, leaving no central record of what the company was actually paying for. When James joined as operations manager, he inherited an undocumented stack. His initial estimate for monthly SaaS spend was $1,200. The actual figure turned out to be $1,870 per month.
What he did
James used CostLoop's CSV bank import to surface all recurring charges from the company's accounts. He matched each charge to a tool, added an owner for every subscription, and built out a renewal calendar so the team had visibility on upcoming commitments.
The result
The import revealed 7 subscriptions that had no record in any internal system - totalling $390 per month. Five were eliminated entirely. Two were reassigned to active owners and retained. Monthly spend dropped from $1,870 to $1,340, a saving of $530 per month and $6,360 per year.
$670/mo
Estimated vs actual gap
7
Subscriptions found via import
$530/mo
Monthly savings
$6,360
Annual savings
AP
Anna P.
Independent Business Consultant, Toronto
The situation
Anna's consulting practice runs on 14 subscriptions covering CRM, invoicing, project management, communications, and storage. The tools themselves were all justified - the problem was annual plans renewing without any advance warning. She had been caught twice by charges she did not see coming.
What she did
She added all 14 subscriptions to CostLoop and set 14-day renewal reminders on every annual plan. She also stored the cancellation link for each tool so she could act quickly if a reminder triggered a cancellation decision.
The result
CostLoop caught 3 annual renewals before they charged. She reviewed each one with time to decide. One tool she cancelled outright, saving $299 per year. One she downgraded to a lower tier, saving $180 per year. When she decided to cancel that tool, she used the stored cancellation link and was done in under 2 minutes. Total annual savings: $479.
3
Annual renewals caught before charge
1
Tool cancelled ($299/yr saved)
1
Tool downgraded ($180/yr saved)
$479
Annual savings