Subscription spending climbs

Dive Brief:

As consumers spend more on goods and services through subscriptions, retail and entertainment categories are attracting a lot of their payments. Those two categories comprised roughly 43% of consumers’ overall subscription spending in the past 12 months ending in July, a greater share than 41% in 2025 and 2024, according to a new Bank of America report. Food, fitness and fashion was the next highest category (26%) among the non-utility spending.
The growth in subscription spending by U.S. consumers at 7.7% outpaced the expansion of total card spending for the second consecutive year, also for the 12-month period through July, according to the report issued Wednesday, which is based on the bank’s transaction data.
While subscription spending among Gen Xers and Baby Boomers grew modestly during that 12-month period at 3% and 5%, respectively, Gen Z subscription spending surged by about 14%, surpassing that of younger Millennials (about 10%) and older Millennials (nearly 8%), per the report.

Dive Insight:

While subscription spending on reading and information was the smallest category of spending (7%), per the bank’s report, those payments grew the most year-over-year, especially among the Gen Z group.

As subscriptions spending by consumers rises, some payments providers are offering tools to help manage them. Card network Visa teamed up with Pinwheel, a New York-based bill management company, to create a subscription manager tool earlier this year, which aggregates users’ subscription information, shows additional payment options and assists users in canceling their subscriptions. The tool aims to give customers control over unwanted charges on their cards.

In its fiscal third-quarter earnings report released in July, Visa CEO Ryan McInerney touted the company’s ancillary services, including its subscription manager tool, as a boon to revenue growth.

Meanwhile, other firms have focused on curtailing unnecessary subscription cancellations. Subscription churn, defined as customers losing access to their subscriptions due to faulty payment methods, costs companies up to $440 billion annually, according to an estimate from Butter Payments, a San Francisco-based payment recovery company. That startup, which primarily works with media, fitness and health businesses, uses machine learning algorithms to identify the cause of payment failures and possible resolutions.