WSJ Your Money Briefing - When a Lifetime Subscription Is Worth It – and When It's Not

Episode Date: February 20, 2025

The cost of streaming and other online services continues to rise. More companies are now offering lifetime subscriptions that could save you money in the long run. Wall Street Journal columnist Nicole Nguyen joins host Ariana Aspuru to discuss what you should know before paying for a “forever plan,” “perpetual license” or “permanent access pass.”  Sign up for the WSJ's free Markets A.M. newsletter.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With the FIZ loyalty program, you get rewarded just for having a mobile plan. You know, for texting and stuff. And if you're not getting rewards like extra data and dollars off with your mobile plan, you're not with FIZ. Switch today. Conditions apply. Details at fiz.ca. Here's your money briefing for Thursday, February 20th. I'm Arianna Aspuru for The Wall Street Journal. February 20th. I'm Arianna Aspuru for The Wall Street Journal.

Commitment can be scary. A lifetime subscription is one that could save you money in the long run. But is it worth it? It forces people to really pause and reflect on whether or not that service is useful in their life, which is a great thing. That's one benefit. And another benefit is it just gets rid of that monthly fee. You don't really have to worry about these recurring costs adding up over time. If you can stick with the service and amortize that cost, then it can save you money. We'll talk with Wall Street Journal personal technology columnist Nicole Nguyen

about how to decide when a lifetime subscription is worth the money and the risk. That's after the break. TD Direct Investing offers live support. So whether you're a newbie or a seasoned pro, you can make your investing steps count. And if you're like me and think a TFSA stands for Total Fund Savings Adventure, maybe reach out to T.D. Direct Investing. If you're tired of paying a monthly bill for your subscription, you might consider switching to a lifetime membership. Wall Street Journal columnist Nicole Nguyen joins me.

Nicole, I feel like a lot more things come with subscriptions these days. Why is that? It's a really good business for companies to get your money month after month. It allows them to charge a lower cost upfront, which is enticing. It's like, oh I can try this service for just a couple bucks a month. The problem is consumers are really bad at unsubscribing and companies are betting that we will forget or that the friction to unsubscribe is so large

that we won't, and they can continue to eat into our wallets. Yeah, I had the same thing happen. I got a subscription to watch the Grammys a little bit ago, and guess what? It just renewed. I was like, oh my gosh. Yeah, they gotcha.

I'll get them next time. Nicole, what are the benefits of having a lifetime subscription? Hopefully before you sign up for a lifetime subscription, you're really considering the cost and your usage. It forces people to really pause and reflect on whether or not that service is useful in their life, which is a great thing. That's one benefit. And another benefit is it just gets rid of that monthly fee. You don't really have to worry about these recurring costs adding up over time. If you can stick with the service and amortize that cost,

then it can save you money. What are the possible downsides? One downside is that the company ceases to exist in a shorter amount of time than you expected. This is definitely a possibility in my over a decade or so covering technology. I've seen many services come and go. Another downside is maybe a bigger tech company copies that app idea and offers it to you for free or

at low cost. Both Apple and Google have been guilty of this. And another downside is that without that reminder hitting your credit card bill every month that you're paying for the service, you might forget that you even have access to it and you might be less motivated to use it. And another thing people consider is the actual price of the lifetime membership. Let's ballpark. How much can these cost? I know it's dependent on the company, but just so we can get some numbers out here.

At the low end, under 50 bucks. At the high end, under 50 bucks, at the high end, over $1,000, sometimes thousands. But these services range from a little widget that makes your home screen really cute to like increased acceleration on your electric vehicle. If someone sees a service like that or one that they're considering and they offer a lifetime subscription,

what's the first bit of math they should do to figure out if it's right for them? If there's an annual fee, divide that lifetime fee by the annual fee. And that'll tell you the number of years that you need to use the service to even balance the books, to break even. Ideally, you want to use the service longer than that amount of time to actually extract value. And the companies are betting that you won't. So do. Prove them wrong? Yes.

In your column, you also write that these really should be called long-term subscriptions. Why is that? In the year 2025, things on the internet are not guaranteed to be forever. And a company can be acquired, it can be closed down and shut down. They can choose to release a new version of their service and leave the addition that you locked in into a lifetime subscription behind. So I think that they should be called long-term subscriptions because you're really making an investment on the next several years and not your lifetime but the company's lifetime. Can you or the company ever cancel a lifetime subscription, like any way you could get your

money back if you're just not into it? In almost all of the examples that I looked into, no, you cannot cancel a lifetime subscription unless you do so immediately and make a very lovely plea via written email to the customer service team at that company. But no, they are not cancelable. But a company can cancel on you if it decides to shut down or stop supporting the lifetime agreement. What companies might be more beneficial to pay a monthly subscription for rather than a lifetime one?

If it's too good to be true, then it probably is. Two examples where these kinds of services have extremely high recurring costs and we do see lifetime subscriptions, but do not be tempted by them, are in virtual private networks and cloud storage solutions. You do want to pay a monthly fee, because otherwise those companies are cutting corners in other ways, potentially compromising your security and privacy.

And if you're using an app to store precious photos and files, you don't really want to be messing with that. I also pay for my password manager because security threats are new and ongoing, and bad actors continually find ways to hack and steal your data. And so I like to give a password manager my business so that it can fund their research into continuing to protect my most valuable digital asset. That's WSJ columnist Nicole Nguyen,

and that's it for your Money Briefing. I'm Arianna Aspuru for The Wall Street Journal. This episode was produced by me with supervising producer Melanie Roy. Thanks for listening.