Can I Afford a Subscription?
A quick check that one more subscription is harmless — as a share of income and per year.
Subscriptions are designed to feel small. This calculator puts a subscription next to your income and shows the yearly total, so “just $15” becomes a number your budget can actually judge.
At a glance
- What you enter
- Monthly subscription cost, Net monthly income
- What you get
- Share of monthly income, Cost per year, Affordability score (0–100)
- Formula shown
- Yes — every step, right below your results.
- Cost and privacy
- Free, no account needed, and nothing you type is stored.
See worked examples ↓ Read the FAQ ↓ Share this calculator ↓
How is this calculated?
Share = monthly subscription ÷ net income × 100. Yearly cost = monthly × 12. The score is a rule of thumb: under 2% of income is comfortable, over 10% is a lot — many households quietly cross that with several subscriptions.
Results are estimates for general information only — always verify with a professional or official source before acting on them.
How to use the Can I Afford a Subscription?
- 1 Enter Monthly subscription cost
- 2 Enter Net monthly income
- 3 Press Calculate. You get Share of monthly income, Cost per year, Affordability score (0–100), and every intermediate step stays visible under “How is this calculated?”
- 4 Change one number at a time to see what moves the result — that is usually the most useful thing a calculator can tell you.
Worked examples
Real numbers run through this calculator. Open any example to load it into the form above and change it.
$12 a month on a $4,200 income
A single small subscription that clearly fits.
You enter
- Monthly subscription cost
- $12.00
- Net monthly income
- $4,200.00
You get
- Share of monthly income
- 0.3%
- Cost per year
- $144.00
- Affordability score (0–100)
- 100
Twelve dollars a month is about $144 a year and under 0.3% of income, so the score sits at the top of the scale — this one is not what strains a budget.
$95 a month on a $3,200 income
A premium subscription on a smaller income.
You enter
- Monthly subscription cost
- $95.00
- Net monthly income
- $3,200.00
You get
- Share of monthly income
- 3.0%
- Cost per year
- $1,140.00
- Affordability score (0–100)
- 70
Ninety-five dollars a month is $1,140 a year, close to 3% of income. Still modest in absolute terms, but past the 2% band, so the score falls from 100 to 70.
Guides that go with it
How to Save Money Without Giving Up Everything You Enjoy
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Frequently asked questions
Is the share based on this one subscription or all of them?
On this one alone, which is deliberate: it answers “can I add this specific thing?”. The trap is that the answer stays yes for every subscription you check one at a time. To see the whole stack at once, add up what you already pay and run it through the Subscription Cost Calculator.
How does the affordability score work here?
It is a band, not a smooth formula. A subscription at or under 2% of net income scores 100; up to 5% scores 70; up to 10% scores 35; above that it scores 10. Because the bands are wide, a tiny change can drop you a full step — 2.1% of income scores 70 even though it is barely more than 2%.
Why bother with the yearly figure for something this small?
Because a monthly price is designed to feel trivial and an annual one is not. Ten dollars a month is $120 a year; twenty is $240. The yearly output is the number to compare against things you would think twice about buying outright, and it is the figure that makes a bundle of “small” subscriptions visible.
Should I use gross or net income?
Net. A subscription is paid from the money that actually reaches your account, so using take-home pay gives the honest share. Entering gross income makes every subscription look cheaper than it feels in practice, particularly once several are running at once.