The rise of low-cost subscription services has made it easy for students to lose track of their spending. A few five- or ten-dollar monthly payments to platforms like Netflix, Spotify, or Canva can quietly add up to hundreds of dollars a year. Behavioral experts say this happens because of how the subscription model plays on consumer psychology.
Canceling a service often feels like giving something up, a response known as loss aversion. After paying for several months, many students continue subscribing to justify the expense, a pattern tied to the sunk-cost fallacy. Pricing tricks such as $9.99 instead of $10 also make charges seem smaller, while social pressure and the fear of missing out encourage students to keep multiple subscriptions.
Canceling is often harder than signing up. Although the Federal Trade Commission introduced a “click-to-cancel” rule in 2024 to simplify the process, the policy was struck down in 2025, leaving consumers with little protection against confusing or delayed cancellation systems. Experts suggest that students counter these effects by tracking their expenses, limiting subscription spending to a small portion of their monthly budget, and staying mindful of how small recurring payments can silently drain their finances.