Stop wasting money by paying for subscriptions through iTunes

Have an iPhone or iPad? Did you happen to sign up for a subscription to Hulu, Spotify, TIDAL, or YouTube Red through iTunes? Those services, including a whole host of others, are costing you up to 30% more than you need to pay than if you were to sign up directly though their websites. For example a single subscription to TIDAL, where you can get true HiFi audio, costs $19.99 per month. If you subscribe through Apple it costs $25.99 per month for a difference of $6. Over the course of a year, you are paying an extra $72, all of which goes to Apple. Spotify doesn’t allow new users to sign up through Apple’s in-app purchasing system, but anyone who is being billed through Apple should cancel and sign up again directly. If you don’t have a credit card, Spotify allows other methods of payment such as paying through your phone’s carrier. A subscription to Hulu without commercials costs $11.99 per month, but through iTunes it costs $13.99 per month.

Google doesn’t do this to its Android user base. The price you pay on websites such as Hulu and Spotify cost the same as if you were to subscribe through the respective Android apps.

Apple does this because it can. It uses the money it makes to develop its app store and other software iOS fans enjoy so much.

You don’t have to go to a computer to sign up through these websites. You simply need to open the web browser on your iPhone or iPad and make your purchases direct instead of within the app. My last smartphone was an Android which means most of my digital library was purchased through the Google Play Store. I can’t buy movies or books through the Google made iOS apps, but I can use the Chrome browser from my iPhone and make purchases through the web.

It’s well known that iPhone users tend to make and spend more than Android users. Just because those users have more doesn’t mean they should waste it.

How to cancel an iTunes subscription on iPhone or iPad