How I Used Claude to Audit My Subscriptions (and Found Charges I Forgot About)

Subscriptions are sneaky. You sign up for a free trial, forget to cancel, and suddenly you're paying for something every month that you haven't opened in ages. Multiply that by a few apps and services, and it definitely adds up.

I knew I probably had a few of these hiding in my budget, but going through months of statements line by line? No thanks. So I tried something different. I asked Claude to audit my subscriptions for me, and it found charges I had completely forgotten about.

How I set it up

I use Monarch to track my spending, and Monarch is available as a connector in Claude. Here's what I did:

Added the Monarch connector in Claude.
Signed in to my Monarch account and approved access.
Asked one simple question: "Based on my subscriptions in Monarch, what can be canceled, and are there any overlaps in services?"

That was it. Claude pulled every recurring charge Monarch had detected and went through them for me. No exporting statements, no spreadsheets.

What Claude found

Claude sorted everything into a few buckets, which made it super easy to act on.

Overlaps. These were services doing the same job:

Two website platforms, when I only need one.
Two cloud storage services, even though one of my other apps already includes storage.
A couple of parking charges that might have been the same thing showing up twice.

Worth reviewing. These weren't necessarily wrong, but Claude flagged them so I'd make a conscious decision:

A car tracker app I had honestly forgotten I was paying for.
A yearly charge from a payment company that handles billing for other apps. I couldn't tell what it was for, which is exactly why it was worth checking.

Probably already gone. Claude noticed a handful of subscriptions that hadn't charged me in months. Those were likely already canceled, so I just had to confirm and mark them inactive in Monarch.

Keep. It also told me which ones made sense to keep, like the photo editing software I use for my photography and my password manager. I liked that it didn't just tell me to cancel everything.

The ones I kept on purpose

Not every "overlap" is a mistake. Claude flagged a couple of phone charges as possible duplicates, but those are bills I cover intentionally. Once I explained that, Claude took them off the cancel list right away and didn't push back.

That's the part I think people miss with tools like this. Claude can only see the data, not the story behind it. It's your job to fill in the context, and once you do, the recommendations get a lot better.

Tips for running your own subscription audit

Here's what I'd recommend if you want to try this:

Ask about overlaps, not just cancellations. The biggest wins came from services that did the same job, not from obvious junk.
Look at yearly charges too. Annual subscriptions are the easiest to forget because they only show up once.
Check the "last charged" date. If something hasn't billed in months, it might already be canceled, or your app might be tracking it wrong.
Look up any charge you don't recognize. Payment processors often bill on behalf of other apps, so the name on your statement isn't always the app you signed up for.
Give context. If something is intentional, say so. The advice gets more useful when Claude knows the why.
Make it a habit. Running this check a couple of times a year keeps subscription creep from coming back.

Final thoughts

At the end of the day, this took me a few minutes and saved me from paying for stuff I wasn't using. A subscription audit is one of the easiest money wins out there, and having Claude do the digging made it painless. If you've been meaning to clean up your subscriptions, this is your sign. You can do it too!

Want to try it yourself? You can sign up for Monarch using my referral link, connect it to Claude, and ask the same question I did.

Disclosure: this is a referral link. If you sign up through it, I may receive a reward from Monarch, and you may get a perk too, depending on their current offer. I only recommend tools I actually use.

Full transparency: I used Claude to help me draft this post.