Subscriptions are easy to forget — the free trial that never ended, the app from two phones ago. This workflow scans a year of charges, ranks them by "you probably forgot this," and drafts the exits. You approve every cancellation.
Connect these first
Plaid connects your bank and cards read-only — the agent can see charges, never move money. Gmail helps it check whether you've actually used a service lately.
Three ways to find them — use the ones you have
The steps below start from your bank, because that catches everything. But email finds subscriptions too, and the app stores hide a whole category neither email nor bank statements label clearly. Combine the routes and the agent deduplicates them into one list.
Route 1 — Bank charges (the default, step 01 below)
Plaid, read-only. Catches every recurring charge, including ones that never emailed you a receipt.
Route 2 — Email receipts (no bank connected? start here)
Gmail searches your receipts and renewal notices. It misses subscriptions that bill silently, so treat it as a starting list, not the whole picture.
Paste into Muse
Search my Gmail for the last 12 months for subscription receipts, renewal notices and billing emails. Use these search terms: subscription, receipt, renewal, billing, "your subscription", "payment received". Build a table: service, amount, how often it bills, last charge date. Include only charges that look recurring. Do not change anything — just the list.
Route 3 — App stores (the one email misses)
Apple and Google subscriptions often bill without a per-charge email, and Muse cannot read your App Store or Play account directly. Open the lists yourself — iPhone: Settings → your name → Subscriptions; Android: Play Store → profile → Payments & subscriptions — copy them and paste them into Muse with this:
Paste into Muse, with your lists
Here are my App Store and Google Play subscriptions: [paste both lists]. Merge them into my subscription list, remove duplicates, and flag any that appear in neither my bank charges nor my email. Do not cancel anything — just the merged list.
Two more places worth a glance: your card issuer's app (many now show a recurring-payments view) and your calendar (renewal reminders you set yourself). Paste anything they surface into the same merged list.
Paste into Muse
Connect to my bank accounts and cards through Plaid in read-only mode. List every recurring charge from the last 12 months: merchant, amount, and how often it bills. Do not change anything — just the list.
Paste into Muse
For each subscription on the list, check my email for receipts or usage signs in the last 90 days. Rank them from "probably forgotten" to "actively used", with one line of evidence for each ranking.
Draft the exits
Cancellation drafts for the ones you pick — the agent does the homework, you pull the trigger.
Paste into Muse · asks your approval
For these subscriptions I want to cancel: [names]. Find each one's cancellation process — link, or the exact steps if there's no online cancel. Draft the cancellation message where one is needed. Do NOT cancel anything — show me each draft and link first.
Confirm they're dead
A month later, verify the charges actually stopped — set the reminder now so the check happens.
Paste into Muse
Set a reminder for 30 days from now: check my statements for any charges from [the cancelled subscriptions]. If any billed again, flag it immediately with the amount and date.
Where approvals sit
Scanning and ranking need no approval — it's all read-only. Every cancellation needs your explicit pick. The agent prepares; you decide what lives and what dies.
What to verify
Check your statements against the agent's list the first time — make sure it found everything. After canceling, watch for the confirmation emails and the next billing cycle: some merchants keep billing and hope you don't notice.
What can go wrong
The agent can only judge usage from what it can see — it might flag the gym you go to but never email about. Some merchants deliberately make canceling hard (phone-only, retention mazes); the agent finds the path but you may still have to make the call. And never let it cancel anything unreviewed — one wrong "forgotten" flag could kill something you need.
Find the money leaking out.: questions
- Is connecting my bank safe?
- Plaid is the industry-standard connector banks themselves use, and here it's read-only: the agent sees transactions, it cannot move money. Connect read-only and keep it that way.
- What about annual subscriptions that just renewed?
- Ask the agent to flag anything that renewed in the last 30 days — many services refund within a window. Draft the refund request the same way as a cancellation.
- How often should I run this?
- Twice a year is plenty for most households. Set a calendar reminder — or let the Level 3 watches workflow remind you.