Nobody signs up for eleven subscriptions. They arrive one at a time, each one small enough to ignore, and the total only becomes visible when a whole year of statements is laid end to end. In New Zealand the search is complicated by something specific: three different payment rails carry recurring charges, they look almost the same on your statement, and each one is stopped in a different place. This guide is about finding them all. On the other side of the ledger, an app such as I am Beezy pays you for viewing content, which is a way to offset what remains after the cuts.
Where the money actually leaves your account
Recurring payments in this country run on rails administered by Payments NZ, and the distinction is not academic — it decides who can stop the payment.
Direct debit, automatic payment, card on file
Consumer Protection defines the first two precisely. A direct debit is a regular payment that is approved by you but set up and controlled by the business you are paying, and the bank needs a signed authorisation from you to set one up. An automatic payment is a regular payment that is set up and controlled by you, for the same amount every time, and you can usually set one up yourself in online banking. The third kind is neither: a card-on-file charge, where a merchant keeps your card number and bills it. Direct debits and automatic payments belong to the Bulk Electronic Clearing System; card charges run through the consumer card system that also carries EFTPOS and mobile payments.
Why the difference decides your options
With a direct debit the amount can change with each payment, and the business must let you know in advance the amount and the date. Your bank must act on your instructions if you ask it to cancel or change a direct debit, and you do not need the company's approval to do it. An automatic payment you can change or cancel at any time yourself. A card-on-file charge is the awkward one, because it is stopped by the merchant, and replacing a lost card does not always end it.
How do you find every recurring payment in one evening?
By reading a full year, not a month, and by knowing what a subscription looks like when it is disguised.
Twelve months, not thirty days
Annual renewals are the ones that hurt, and they are invisible in a monthly view. Export twelve months of transactions from your online banking, sort by amount, and look for the same figure recurring at any interval. Do it for every account and every card in the household, including the one used only for online purchases.
What to look for
Trials that converted, an app store bill that lumps several services into a single line, a monthly fee attached to an insurance or a gym that has moved to a new operator, a service billed under a trading name you no longer recognise. When a line is unidentifiable, search the exact wording of the description before assuming it is fraud — most of these are legitimate charges under an unfamiliar company name.
When the charge keeps arriving after you cancelled
It happens often enough to plan for. Cancel in writing, or take a screenshot of the confirmation screen with the date visible, and keep it with the contract. If a direct debit is still being taken after that, instruct your bank to cancel the authority rather than arguing with the company first, because the bank must act on your instruction and the company does not have to agree. Tell the business afterwards so the account is not left in arrears against your name. If the bank fails to act, the Banking Ombudsman is the free scheme that looks at the bank's conduct. Keep the proof of cancellation for at least a year, since the second charge is usually the one that has to be argued.
The layer inside your phone
Subscriptions bought through a phone's app store are managed inside the store account, not by your bank, and cancelling the card will not always end them. Open the subscriptions list in the store settings and read it in full. This is where the forgotten ones live.
| Rail | Who controls it | How you stop it | If it goes wrong |
|---|---|---|---|
| Direct debit | The business, under an authorisation you signed | Instruct your bank; no approval from the business needed | Banking Ombudsman if the bank does not act |
| Automatic payment | You | Change or cancel it in online banking at any time | Nothing to escalate, it is yours |
| Card on file | The merchant holding your card details | Cancel with the merchant, then check the next statement | Dispute with your card issuer |
| App store subscription | The store account on your phone | Cancel inside the store settings | Store support, not your bank |
Which renewal terms the law already considers unfair
New Zealand does not leave rollovers entirely to the contract. Under the Fair Trading Act, every term in a standard form consumer contract must be fair, and the Commerce Commission publishes what that means in practice.
The clauses the regulator names
Its quick guide on subscriptions and automatic rollovers gives worked examples of terms a court may regard as unfair. Automatically renewing a contract without taking sufficient steps to inform the customer beforehand, illustrated by a rolling contract that renews unless you make contact twenty-four hours before renewal. Financial penalties that prevent a customer stopping a renewal, illustrated by a term making 75 percent of the next year's fee payable if notice is given between two and four weeks before expiry. Excessively long notice periods, including a six months' notice requirement in an agreement that continues indefinitely.
What fair looks like
The same guide says terms are more likely to be fair when it is clear from the beginning how the subscription will renew, when the contract requires a reminder to be sent a reasonable time before renewal, and when the customer can cancel a renewed contract without a cancellation fee. A term declared unfair by a court cannot be used, enforced or relied on. That does not let you ignore a contract on your own judgement, but it does mean an aggressive rollover clause is worth challenging rather than paying.
Ask for the reminder before you commit
When you sign up to anything with a fixed term, ask in writing whether you will receive a renewal reminder and how much notice you must give. Save that reply with the contract. It is the single cheapest piece of paperwork in this whole exercise.
Which ones should you cancel, and which should you renegotiate?
Cutting is not always the best move. In two sectors the same money buys more elsewhere, and the regulators publish the evidence.
Mobile, where staying put is the expensive choice
The Commerce Commission found that mobile virtual operators were on average 5 percent cheaper on monthly plans, 36 percent cheaper on prepaid and around 27 percent cheaper on high-data and unlimited plans at June 2025, while holding only 3.2 percent of the market. Only 7 percent of mobile customers changed provider in the year to 30 June 2025. The regulator also publishes which virtual operator runs on which host network, so you can change your bill without changing your coverage.
Power, where the tools are public and free
Electricity is the market New Zealanders actually move in, at around 19 percent switching a year, and the Electricity Authority runs Billy, its own free power comparison website, alongside Powerswitch from Consumer NZ. The Authority also names three things to check before you switch: termination fees, whether your meter is compatible with the plan, and whether a new meter would need to be installed.
Bundles, where the saving can move rather than disappear
Power companies now sell broadband too, and 335,000 households were on a bundled internet and electricity plan in 2025, up 13 percent in a year. The Commerce Commission's warning is worth keeping in mind: savings on telecommunications services are in some cases offset by higher energy prices. Price the two lines separately, then compare.
| Service | Customers who switched, year to 30 June 2025 | Where to compare | Check first |
|---|---|---|---|
| Electricity | About 19% | Billy, run by the Electricity Authority, and Powerswitch | Termination fee, meter compatibility, meter installation |
| Fixed internet | About 11% | The regulator's published prices actually paid, by region | Remaining contract term and any bundle discount |
| Mobile | About 7% | Virtual operators and their host networks, published by the regulator | Coverage on the host network, and whether prepaid suits you |
Offsetting what is left with I am Beezy
Once the cancellations are done, the remaining subscriptions are the ones you actually use, and the question becomes how to pay for them. I am Beezy works from the other direction: you view videos, articles and advertising in the app, each view earns, and the balance goes to the payment method you already use.
What it adds up to against a monthly bill
The platform-wide figure is 5 to 15 euros a day. Taken at the European Central Bank reference rate of 1.9680 New Zealand dollars to the euro on 5 August 2026, that is roughly 9.80 to 29.50 New Zealand dollars a day, which is the scale of an ordinary broadband or power bill over a month. Convert at the rate of the day, and count the income as taxable from the first dollar, since no tax-free threshold exists here.
Keeping it from creeping back
The list rebuilds itself in about eighteen months unless something stops it.
One sweep a year, on a date you will remember
Do the twelve-month export once a year and put it on a fixed date — 1 April is the obvious one here, since the tax year and most annual price changes land then. Prefer automatic payments over direct debits where a company offers the choice, because an automatic payment is yours to stop. Consider prepaid for mobile, which 46.3 percent of the country's connections already use and which has no renewal to forget. And if you want the remaining bills to cost you less in net terms, I am Beezy pays for attention you were spending anyway, which is the one line in this budget that moves in the right direction.
