This Is How Many Subscriptions The Average Brit Has (& How Much They Cost)

If you've added one or two extra subscriptions to your monthly outgoings during lockdown, you're probably not the only one. The average Brit is now spending £55 a month on subscriptions such as Netflix, Spotify and Amazon Prime, according to new research.

This adds up to £670 over the course of year if these subscriptions are kept active for a full 12 months.

More than half (57%) of Brits now have three or more monthly subscriptions and three-quarters have at least one, research by TopCashBack.co.uk found.

Perhaps unsurprisingly given that fewer millennials are watching linear TV, the most popular monthly subscription is for TV streaming services such as Netflix, BritBox and Disney+. The average spend on these comes in at £14.09 a month.

The average spend on product delivery services such as Amazon Prime comes in at £12.80 – considerably less than the average spend on fitness subscriptions (£32.06) and recipe boxes (£28.72).

Nearly one in five Brits (18%) now has a recipe box subscription – which is exactly double the number (9%) who had one in 2019. The data was compiled back in April, so this increase could reflect the fact that more of us have got into cooking during lockdown.

Adam Bullock of TopCashBack.co.uk noted that "the majority of people [polled] feel they are getting value for money from their subscriptions". 

However, in response to the fact that 40% of people have forgotten to cancel a free trial to a subcription service, he added more cautiously: "While people are getting use out of them at the moment, we would encourage those taking out new contracts or services to be extra vigilant about when trials end, and consider if they are going to need or use it once self-isolation comes to an end."

We recently asked women all over the UK how their spending and saving habits have changed for the better during lockdown.