Someone on r/personalfinance described the exact moment: they added their 11th subscription to a tracker app, and suddenly everything locked up — they had to delete one entry just to edit another. The cap wasn't in the app's name or the onboarding; it was somewhere in a pricing FAQ they never opened. Two weeks of data, sideways — because "free" meant something narrower than expected.
This is how most limits work in this category. The cap, the locked export, the expired trial dressed up as a permanent plan — none of that is an oversight. It's the model. If you know where each app draws the line before you start using it, you don't end up deleting Netflix to stay under quota.
Quick answer
- Unlimited free entries, no bank required: Subby (Android, ad-supported), "Subscriptions - Track Expenses" (iOS)
- 10 free entries, email reminders included: SubTracker (subtracker.io, web/PWA)
- 10 free entries, CSV export free: TrackMySubs (web, all platforms)
- 5 free entries, one-time unlock: Bobby (iOS, $0.99–$2.99), SubTrack'd (iOS, $5.99), Chronicle (iOS/Mac, $11.99/yr)
- Unlimited detection, but export paywalled: Rocket Money (US bank-linked)
- Fully free, unlimited, self-hosted: Wallos (requires a server)
- No free plan — trial only: PocketGuard (7 days, then $74.99/yr), Copilot (~30 days, then $95/yr)
The apps with hard entry caps
Bobby (iOS), SubTrack'd (iOS), and Chronicle (iOS/Mac) all cap the free tier at 5 subscriptions. Bobby's $0.99 "Unlock Subscription Limit" IAP exists as a standalone purchase — which tells you the limit is enforced deliberately. SubTrack'd is at least honest about the philosophy: the paid unlock is a one-time $5.99, and their App Store copy explicitly calls out the "irony of paying a subscription to manage subscriptions."
TrackMySubs, SubTracker (subtracker.io), and Subnesio sit at 10 free entries — a more generous cap, but still a cap. The difference is what comes alongside those 10 slots. TrackMySubs squeezes the free tier hard: 10 MB file storage, one email alert per subscription, and only three folders with three payment types — functional, but you'll feel the walls. SubTracker's free plan includes renewal email alerts and cost analytics, making it the better pick if you specifically want email reminders without paying. Subnesio's free tier gives you the dashboard and upcoming renewals view but holds email reminders and calendar sync for the Pro plan — 10 subscriptions with full visibility, no reminders.
The apps that claim "free" but mean something else
PocketGuard is the clearest cautionary tale. It had a usable permanent free tier until January 2025 — then eliminated it. New users now get a 7-day trial, after which PocketGuard Plus costs $74.99/year (up from $34.99 in 2023 — a 114% increase). The lifetime plan was discontinued separately in February 2024. If you read any review from 2024 describing PocketGuard's free tier, that tier no longer exists.
Copilot Money is similar — trial only, $95/year after it ends. Copilot's stated reasoning is that a free tier would require monetizing user data, and they'd rather not — coherent, even if the outcome is the same.
Rocket Money occupies a confusing middle ground. The free plan genuinely exists and detects unlimited subscriptions automatically via Plaid. What it withholds: CSV export, in-app cancellation, most budgeting features, desktop web access — all Premium-only, at $7–$14/month. "Free Rocket Money" is a useful one-time audit — it'll show you what you're paying and to whom — but anything beyond reading that data on-screen costs money. The article on why bank-connected trackers have limits goes deeper on why auto-detection and manual tracking solve different problems.
The genuinely free options
Two manual-entry apps give you unlimited subscriptions at no cost. Subby (Android) is fully free with ads; $2.99 removes them — that's the entire monetization model. No entry caps, no feature locks, just a banner ad. The iOS app "Subscriptions - Track Expenses" is similarly unlimited on the free tier (free iCloud sync included), though CSV export, price history, and currency conversion require the Pro IAP at $2.99/year. Both require no bank account link and no account creation beyond the device level.
Wallos is the outlier for the technically inclined: fully open-source, self-hosted, no entry limits, no paid tier, no ads. It supports multi-currency conversion via the Fixer API and sends notifications through email, Discord, Telegram, Pushover, and more. The catch is that you need a server — Docker or PHP — to run it. If that's a sentence you understand and can execute, Wallos is the best free option in this entire category. If it isn't, it isn't.
What "free" usually hides
Export is the most consistently paywalled feature in this space. TrackMySubs is the exception — CSV export is included on the free plan, which is a genuine differentiator. SubTracker locks CSV and iCal export behind its €5.90/month Plus plan. "Subscriptions - Track Expenses" locks CSV behind the $2.99/year Pro. SubTrack'd locks CSV/JSON export behind the $5.99 one-time purchase. Rocket Money locks transaction export behind Premium. Bobby and Subby offer no export at all.
Email reminders follow a similar split: SubTracker includes them on the free plan, TrackMySubs allows one alert per subscription on free, while others move reminders to paid. If pre-renewal email alerts are the specific feature you need — and they're one of the more reliable ways to avoid surprise charges — factor that into the comparison before settling on a tracker.
A 2026 test by LowerMySubs found that manual-entry tools performed as well as bank-connected ones at catching subscriptions, because automated detection misses annual charges, family plan shares, and app-store-billed subscriptions anyway.
Which free tracker for which situation
Android, no bank link, no entry limit — Subby. iOS, five or fewer subscriptions — Bobby's free tier is enough, and the $0.99 unlock is less than any monthly subscription plan in this category. Web access across platforms plus email reminders on the free tier — SubTracker (subtracker.io) is the only one that delivers both. CSV export on the free plan, because you want to own your data regardless — TrackMySubs is the only freemium app that doesn't lock it.
Most people have under 10 active subscriptions and don't need CSV export weekly. For them, several options here will work without payment. The ones who hit walls are the ones who assume "free" means "fully featured, forever" — and then discover, at entry 11, that it doesn't.
P.S. If you're still working out which apps you're actually paying for before you pick a tracker to manage them, the how to cancel a subscription you forgot about guide is a reasonable first step.
