3 Subscriptions Worth Having In 2023

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These Are Genuinely Worth It!

Subscriptions
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We live at a time where paid subscriptions have become a popular business model for a wide range of industries ranging from entertainment to software and even coffee! 

Sounds scary right? It doesn’t have to be! The subscription model comes with benefits for both the consumer and the business offering the subscription. For starters, it allows companies to generate a steady stream of revenue while providing customers with a cost-effective way of accessing the products and services they require.

While this sounds like a convenient solution, it can be a hassle in the long term, especially as we tend to forget that we’re subscribed to things and if you have a couple of subscriptions going at the same time, the overall cost does build up.

That’s why every time I sign up for a subscription, I add it to a spreadsheet that totals my overall expenditure on subscriptions and I have a recurring calendar event set reminding me to go through that spreadsheet every 6 months and cancel anything I’m not using. This helps me keep on top of things and to avoid spending money where I no longer need to.

I’m currently going through that spreadsheet and I thought it will be a great idea to share the 3 subscriptions that I simply cannot live without and that I think will be beneficial to you.

1. Dashlane

I’ve used many password managers over the years, but Dashlane remains as my go-to solution. I mean, I don’t even think it’s fair to just call it a password manager due to the number of things you are getting under one roof! To me, Dashlane is a security suite.

I pay £3.99 per month for Dashlane premium, but cheaper options are available including a free tier. One of the main reasons that I decided to go with the premium subscription is that it comes with a VPN, which is perfect if you connect to open WiFi networks. 

A VPN (virtual private network) keeps your internet traffic protected by routing it through an encrypted tunnel that nobody on an open network can see. At present, Dashlane uses Hotspot Shield as their provider, which appears to be a solid choice offering a huge number of locations worldwide. 

But that’s not the only reason that I’m recommending Dashlane. Dashlane helps me create unique and secure passwords, it has Dark Web monitoring which scans the web for possible leaks of your data and you receive personalised security alerts when your data stored in Dashlane is affected by a security breach.

Dashlane even allows you to share your password without actually sharing it! Both parties need to have a Dashlane account and if you need to share your password with someone you trust, you can share and later revoke access.

Overall, Dashlane is a product I use and just can’t recommend it enough!

Why You Need A Password Manager – My Review Of Dashlane

2. OneDrive

We live in a world where backing up your data is important and not only that, but we use multiple devices such as smartphones, tablets and even laptops, so it makes sense to have data centralised. That’s where OneDrive comes in, I’ve used several cloud storage providers in the past but as someone who lives in a multi-platform ecosystem, I find that OneDrive works best across multiple platforms.

At present, I pay £5.99 per month and that gives me 1TB worth of cloud storage as well as the Microsoft 365 apps such as Word, PowerPoint and Excel. But I mainly decided to subscribe because of the cloud storage. 

OneDrive offers a free and basic plan which costs considerably less and you still gain access to the online versions of Word, PowerPoint and Excel, which are still pretty decent in most cases. However, the free plan only gives you 5GB of storage space, which is much lower compared to the 15GB you get with Google Drive free of charge. The basic plan costs £1.99 per month and offers 100GB of cloud storage, which is actually not too bad.

To summarise, as someone who works in IT, I highly recommend using some form of cloud storage solution for backing up your data. Your phone or computer can go wrong at any time with no warning, causing you to lose valuable data. I’m talking from personal experience here, as OneDrive really saved me as a university student!

How OneDrive Saved Me As A Student And Why You Should Use It!

3. Todoist

The final subscription I wanted to talk about in this list is Todoist which is a recent addition to my list of subscriptions. Todoist helps me keep on top of things on a daily basis with its well-built apps and some pretty decent features. 

At present, I’m actually using Todoist as part of a 6-month trial I had with my phone, but I plan to renew once the trial is over as it really has made a difference in my life, particularly when it comes to staying organised.

Like the other two apps, Todoist offers a free tier with limitations such as only being able to have 5 active projects at a time, but that actually is reasonable for the majority of people. At present, I use the Pro version as it provides me features you can’t get in the free version such as reminders and more projects.

At the time of writing this article, the Pro version costs £5 per month or £48 annually, which isn’t cheap, but if it works for you, it’s worth it!

I tried many To-Do list apps this year, but Todoist works best for me. But if you are in the search of an app to keep you organised, I recommend trying a few different options as they are out there and everybody works differently.

I Finally Found a Multiplatform To-Do List App I Enjoy: Todoist!

Summary

To summarise this article, I wanted to say that I wouldn’t just recommend a subscription out of the blue, the products I mentioned in this article not only make my life easier, but I’m sure they will help others out too! This is not the full list of subscriptions that I’m subscribed to but, it’s the 3 I value most.

What are your top 3 subscriptions? Let us know in the comments and why. I’m genuinely interested and it may help others out!