I counted mine up last month while waiting for the kettle to boil. Fourteen subscriptions. Fourteen. Disney+, Audible, two different cloud storage plans, a meal kit service I'd used exactly three times. The total came to just over £180 a month draining out on autopilot — and not one of those payments flagged itself.
If that number made you wince, you're not alone. But here's the thing — you probably don't need a third-party app to get on top of it. Your bank almost certainly has built-in tools to flag, freeze, or cap recurring subscription charges. Most people just don't know where to look.
Here's what Monzo, Starling, Chase, Revolut, and NatWest actually offer — and the exact steps to use each one to cancel unused subscriptions and stop the slow bleed.
Subscription tracker: a bank feature that groups all recurring charges into one view so you can see what you're paying for, how much, and how often — without needing a separate app.
1. Monzo Subscription Management: Recurring Payments Screen and Merchant Blocks
Monzo lists every active subscription under its Recurring Payments screen — found in the Finances tab — showing the amount and frequency for each charge, making it one of the most complete subscription trackers built into any UK bank app. No third-party tool required.
Seeing £7.99 listed next to "Audible" with a recent charge date was what finally made me cancel mine. Sometimes you just need the number in your face.
The more powerful option is merchant blocking. Tap any subscription transaction, scroll down, and you'll find the option to block future payments from that merchant entirely. It's not a formal cancellation — the provider may still chase you by email — but it immediately stops the charge hitting your account. Useful when you can't face another 15-minute cancellation flow with a progress bar and three "are you sure?" screens.
Monzo Plus and Premium users also get virtual cards, which you can generate specifically for a free trial and then delete when it ends. The next charge attempt bounces automatically. Low-faff and surprisingly effective.
How to access it: Monzo app → Finances tab → Recurring Payments. To block a merchant: tap a transaction from them → scroll down → select "Block payments from [merchant]".
2. Starling Bank: Category Spending Limits That Alert Before You Overspend
Starling Bank automatically flags when your subscription spending exceeds a category limit you set — making it the most proactive option for preventing overspend before it happens, rather than reviewing damage after. Starling sorts every transaction into categories like Entertainment and Subscriptions, and you can set a monthly cap per category with notification alerts baked in.
One new streaming service feels fine. By the time you've quietly added five, Starling has already sent you a warning. That's genuinely more useful than a list you have to go looking for.
Direct debits are also displayed in a single view under your account management section, which makes it easy to see everything active in one place. If you haven't done a proper audit recently, working through my 30-minute direct debit audit walkthrough alongside this is well worth the time — most people find at least one payment they'd completely blanked on.
How to access it: Starling app → Spending tab → tap a category → Set spending limit. Direct debits: tap your account → Manage Direct Debits.
3. Chase UK: Real-Time Notifications That Create Passive Spending Awareness
Chase UK automatically categorises every transaction and surfaces recurring charges in a monthly spending overview, with instant push notifications for every payment — making it easy to spot subscription costs the moment they hit, without any manual tracking. Chase may not have the most advanced subscription tools yet, but this passive alerting approach is underrated.
Seeing "£12.99 — Paramount+" flash up at 11pm on a Tuesday does something to your brain. You didn't go looking for it. It found you. And that's often enough to prompt a cancellation you'd been putting off.
There's no merchant block as sophisticated as Monzo's, and no dedicated subscriptions tab like Revolut's. But if Chase is already your main account, the category spending view and real-time alerts are a solid starting point for how to reduce subscriptions automatically — without switching banks.
How to access it: Chase UK app → Spending tab → select Subscriptions or Entertainment to review recurring charges month by month.
4. Revolut: The Best Dedicated Subscription Tracker in Any UK Bank App
Revolut has a dedicated Subscriptions tab that lists every recurring payment detected on your account — service name, amount, and frequency — making it the most comprehensive standalone subscription tracker available in any UK bank app right now. Revolut also lets you block merchants directly from that view, without navigating to the provider's website at all.
But the feature I rate most is disposable virtual cards. Generate a new virtual card, attach it to a free trial sign-up, and when the trial ends: delete the card. The subscription has no valid payment details to charge the following month. No "are you sure you want to cancel?" retention loop. No calendar reminder. Just gone.
This is the most friction-free way to handle trials I've found, and it's built into the standard Revolut app — not locked behind a premium tier.
How to access it: Revolut app → Hub → Subscriptions. Virtual cards: Cards tab → Add New Card → Virtual Card. Delete the card once the trial period ends.
5. NatWest: Upcoming Payment Alerts That Give You Time to Act
NatWest sends a notification one to two days before a scheduled direct debit or recurring subscription charge hits your account, giving you a window to cancel before the money actually leaves. It's not as powerful as a merchant block — and yes, it's a bit rubbish compared to what the digital banks offer — but as a safety net on a traditional bank account, it genuinely does the job.
The Spending tab also groups recurring payments by category, so you can see subscriptions and bills in one view rather than scrolling through months of individual transactions.
NatWest supports open banking too, which means if you use a tool like Emma — a budgeting app that aggregates data across multiple bank accounts — your NatWest subscriptions will appear alongside everything else in one dashboard.
How to access it: NatWest app → Spending → Bills & Subscriptions. Payment alerts: Settings → Notifications → Bill reminders.
Which Bank Is Best for Managing Subscriptions in the UK?
For the best subscription tracker UK bank apps offer, Revolut leads on dedicated tooling. Monzo is the strongest option for blocking merchants and protecting yourself from forgotten trial charges. Starling wins if you want proactive category limits that catch overspend before it happens — it's the most behavioural of the three approaches, and arguably the most useful long-term.
NatWest and Chase are both worth using if they're already your main bank, but neither matches the digital-first trio on this specific feature set. If you're actively considering a switch, it's worth factoring in the savings side too — my comparison of Plum vs Chip vs Monzo savings accounts covers how each one grows the money you free up, including interest rates and FSCS protection.
Free tool: Use our Subscription & Direct Debit Audit spreadsheet (free) to find out exactly where your money goes each month. See all our UK finance tools.
If you've been meaning to do a subscription clear-out for months, pick whichever bank you use, find the relevant screen above, and spend ten minutes on it tonight. Worst case, everything checks out. Best case, you cancel three things you'd completely forgotten about and claw back a decent chunk every month — without downloading a single extra app.