Your subscriptions have a clock

This calculator doesn’t ask how much you spend on subscriptions — that’s a different question, answered by a different tool. It asks what happens to those same charges if you suddenly stop being the one managing them, whether that’s a death or a long hospitalization that leaves someone else in charge of your accounts. The grid above models the gap between that moment and the moment someone can actually reach in and stop the billing.

Not every subscription leaks the same way

Move the slider and you’ll notice monthly and annual subscriptions behave completely differently. A monthly charge adds up steadily — it grows with every month that passes before discovery. An annual charge is closer to a coin flip: either its renewal date falls before the marker, in which case the entire year is gone (subscription services almost never prorate a refund for a renewal that’s already been caught), or it falls after, in which case it hasn’t cost anything yet. In the quick estimate, five monthly subscriptions averaging $16 add up to $320 over four months on their own. If one of the two simulated annual renewals (spread across the calendar, since exact dates aren’t known) falls inside that same window, its full $110 gets added on top — a $430 total where that one renewal accounts for roughly a quarter of it.

One renewal can outweigh everything else

The callout below the grid isn’t always the most expensive subscription on paper — it’s whichever one contributed the most to the total at the current marker position. Often that’s an annual renewal that happened to fall inside the window, even if its monthly-equivalent cost looks small next to a pricier subscription that hasn’t renewed yet. That’s the point: exposure depends on timing, not just price.

Discovery isn’t the same as access

The four access options above aren’t about how much someone loves you — they’re about whether they can actually see the accounts, find the list of subscriptions, and get into them to cancel. Someone can notice unusual activity on a shared statement quickly and still spend weeks tracking down passwords for each individual service. The ranges attached to each option are illustrative, not a published average, because no two households manage access the same way.

Try the prepared scenario

The two-card comparison shows the same subscriptions calculated twice: once at your current access scenario, and once at the fastest access timing this model uses — still about two weeks, not zero, because even a password manager shared in advance or a Legacy Contact already set up takes someone a moment to notice and act. The difference between the two numbers isn’t a percentage or an “efficiency score” — it’s just what the same subscriptions would have cost under two different starting conditions.

Access rights to someone’s digital accounts after death or incapacity are addressed by the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, adopted in some form in most states (uniformlaws.org). It doesn’t automatically hand every relative full access to every account — access depends on what the deceased or incapacitated person set up in advance and what each platform’s own tools allow. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has a plain-language explainer on related financial access questions, including power of attorney and what happens to a joint account when one owner dies (consumerfinance.gov).

This calculator produces an illustrative estimate based on the scenario you choose, not a measured statistic or legal advice. Probate timelines, digital access rules, and account policies vary by state and by provider — for guidance specific to your situation, talk to an estate planning attorney. Last updated: September 2026.