How I Use Subly To Manage Recurring Subscriptions For My Online Business As A Solopreneur

It’s easy to forget about recurring subscriptions and lose money.

I was suffering this problem as a solopreneur building an online business.

There are so many tools I need to use for my business. But it was hard to keep track of each one.

Luckily, I stumbled upon an application on AppSumo called Subly.

In this post, I’ll share my experience with Subly. Hopefully, it can help you as well.

What is Subly?

Subly is a SaaS application that you can use to keep track of your software purchases. I find it especially useful to track recurring software subscriptions.

So I know how much I spend each month or year. And it helps make me decisions whether I need to stop any subscriptions if I’m not using them.

Why use a tool like Subly to manage subscriptions?

I find the tool useful because it gives me an idea of how much I’m spending on software tools annually.

I can decide whether I want to continue using the tool. Sometimes, I forget I even have subscriptions to a tool. It’s too late when the payment happens and I can’t get a refund.

So, Subly helps me stop spending on software tools that I’m not using. Or that are no longer needed for my business.

How much does Subly cost?

I was lucky to get a $19 Lifetime Deal for Subly on AppSumo. Before that, I was trying to use Google sheets to keep a note of my software purchases. But it was a pain.

I was on the lookout for a subscription tracking tool and was happy to find Subly.

Right now, Subly has the below pricing. You can use Subly for free and track up to 10 subscriptions. If you need more, then you’ll need the $39 yearly plan.

How to use Subly to track your subscriptions

I’m a solopreneur, so I only use this myself to track my subscriptions. You can have team members sharing the plan.

Here’s how I use Subly to track my recurring subscriptions.

1. Set the global settings

Before you use Subly, you’ll need to change some settings as per your needs. This is a one time activity.

Select the Settings tab on the left to reach the Settings page. Here you’ll see the General, Projects, Integrations, and Webhooks tabs.

Select the General tab.

Set the Global Currency to your preferred currency. In my case, I set it to Indian rupee (INR).

Add Payment Methods based on what you use. I pay using PayPal or Credit Card, so I added those.

You can add Categories and Tags if you want to. I add them later when I’m creating a new subscription.

2. Create a project

I created two projects to track my business expenses and personal expenses separately. You can do this by selecting All Projects and clicking the Create Project button.

If I select any of the projects, e.g. Business, I can see all of my software subscriptions and how much it costs me weekly, monthly, annually under the Recurring expenses.

3. Add a recurring subscription to the project

Click on the Add subscription button that you see on the top right. You can search for a service that already exists. Or Add from scratch.

Existing services are available for common subscriptions such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, etc.

If the service you need does not exist, you can use the Add from scratch option to create your own.

To add a new subscription, you put in the details such as Name, Category, Website, etc. Select the Project under which you want to add this subscription.

Under the Billing section, enter the Cost and Subscription Type (recurring, one time). Choose which Payment Method you used.

Select the Payment Frequency, such as monthly or yearly. And choose the Next Payment Date.

Add a Reminder for the newly added subscription. You can choose up to 3 reminders with the below options.

4. Check Reports for your subscriptions

Once you have added subscriptions, you can view the Reports tab that shows below details.

You get a view of your average monthly expenses, what subscription is most expensive or affordable.

You can see your spending for each coming month. You see the upcoming payments for each of your subscriptions.

Conclusion

I hope you found this useful on how you can use Subly to track your recurring software subscriptions.

I would suggest creating separate projects for Business and Personal and add the subscriptions accordingly.

If you have questions about using Subly, comment below or reach out to me via email or Twitter.