4 ways to get more from your subscriptions

How to streamline your subscriptions and get more bang for your buck.

We're living in a golden age of streaming, spoilt for choice, with more podcasts, shows, films and live sport at the touch of our fingertips than ever before.

But all this quality content comes with a catch. Gone are the days when all your favourite shows were on the one streaming service.

Now, they're spread across multiple platforms, making it trickier for us to stay up-to-date with everything that's on – not to mention keep tabs on how much it's all costing.

Luckily, there are solutions to our very first-world problem – and they don't involve cancelling your subscriptions or going back to the old (and very expensive) days of traditional television.

Here's what you can do.

Use a subscription management platform

Optus SubHub is a world-first subscription management platform that lets you easily manage your subscriptions by bringing them together in the one place. Best of all, it's available at no extra cost to Optus customers on eligible Optus plans.

Optus SubHub means you only need to make one payment each month and you can keep track of how much you're paying for all of your subscriptions, making it easier for you to manage your spending and budget for the month.

It can help you make some big savings every month too. With Optus SubHub you can get up to 10% off some of Australia's most popular subscription services when they bundle 3 or more eligible subscriptions through SubHub.

If you only use 2, that's okay. Optus will still knock 5% off your total subscription payment.

Optus SubHub gives you access to some of the most popular streaming services including Netflix, Paramount+, Amazon Prime and BritBox. Let's say you already have a Netflix, Paramount+ and Amazon Subscription – you can save 10% on these subscriptions every month when you bundle these subscriptions.

Here's a list of all the subscription services currently available on SubHub:

Try before you buy

Many of the major streaming services in Australia offer free trials to new customers.

Not only do free trials save you money, they let you figure out if the content on the service is good enough to pay beyond the trial period.

After a week or 2 of binge-watching, explore different content on the range of subscription offerings available. Remember to re-evaluate what subscriptions you have active to ensure you're only paying for the subscriptions you're using.

Know what content you like and where to find it

Free trials are also good for another reason – they let you see exactly what content there is on the subscription service and help you decide whether you like it or not enough to keep it.

But if your trial period has run out or they don't offer one, it's worth looking up a bunch of your favourite shows online to find out what streaming service they're on.

For example, if you like British TV shows, you should probably sign up to BritBox. If you're a fan of the A-League or Star Trek, subscribe to Paramount+.

The same goes for the Premier League on Optus Sport or mega popular shows such as Stranger Things and Bridgerton on Netflix.

If you're on the hunt for something new though, you can also find a bunch of regularly updated lists covering what's on from the Finder team.

Have a usage goal

When you sign up to any subscription, you want to make sure you're getting value for your money.

Having a usage goal is a good way to do this. For example, with subscription services Sweat or Calm, set yourself a weekly target to make sure you're using them. Otherwise, they might not be worth the cash.

It's very easy to get value for your money with streaming services like Netflix though. Apparently, there are 2235 shows in its library. At $16.99 per month, that means you're paying less than $0.008c per show.

Yes, you (hopefully) won't watch every show on Netflix but even if you only binge around 20 episodes of something, that's still works out at less than $1 per show.

If you're really keen on getting more bang for your buck – and you don't get FOMO – hold off on subscribing to a streaming service until the weekly instalments of a show you want to watch are all available. Then, binge it in one go.