The average household now spends £219 per month on subscriptions. That's over £2,600 annually going to streaming services, software, meal kits, fitness apps, and countless other recurring charges.

And people are starting to notice.

Research from Whop shows churn rates hit 6% in 2023, with 50% of professionals anticipating increases in 2024. More tellingly, Mastercard research reveals that 63% of subscribers would stay if prices were reduced, which tells you everything about why they're leaving.

Welcome to the subscription economy's reckoning. The era of unlimited subscriptions is over. Your customers are making brutal choices about what stays and what goes. The question is: are you going to be the one they keep?

The Essentials vs. Aspirational Shift

DelMorgan & Co. research shows that 60%+ of consumers use less than half the features in their bundled subscriptions. Yet they're paying full price for functionality they never access.

In boom times, this waste was tolerable. In a cost-of-living crisis, it's unacceptable.

Consumers are now dividing subscriptions into two categories: essentials and aspirational. Essentials are utilities – the things they genuinely can't function without. Aspirational are nice-to-haves that provide value but aren't critical.

When budgets tighten, aspirational subscriptions get cancelled first. And here's the uncomfortable truth: most wellness, fitness, and lifestyle brands fall into the aspirational category. You're competing with groceries and electricity bills, and you're losing.

The Psychological Safety Economy

But here's where it gets interesting. Adapty's analysis of $1.9 billion in subscription revenue reveals something counterintuitive: users are increasingly choosing "psychological safety" over financial savings.

What does this mean in practice? When forced to choose between multiple subscriptions, consumers keep the ones that feel essential to their wellbeing or identity – even if cheaper alternatives exist. The brand that makes them feel secure, understood, or supported wins over the brand that's simply cheaper.

This creates an opening. If you can shift from aspirational to essential, from "nice to have" to "can't live without", you survive the cull.

The Workplace Benefits Backdoor

Here's the strategic shift that's reshaping the subscription economy: B2B2C positioning. Instead of fighting directly for consumer wallet share, smart brands are becoming part of workplace benefits packages.

Think about the psychology. When a consumer is deciding which subscriptions to keep, the calculation is: "Is this worth £X per month from my limited budget?"

When your service is part of a workplace benefits package, that calculation disappears entirely. It's not coming from their limited budget – their employer funds it. Suddenly, you're not competing with groceries. You're competing with other workplace benefits, which is a dramatically different (and easier) fight.

Future Market Insights projects the subscription economy growing from $557.8 billion in 2025 to $1.9 trillion by 2035, a 13.3% CAGR. But that growth isn't evenly distributed. It's concentrated in categories that either achieve "essential" status or find alternative funding models.

What Makes You the Obvious Choice

When consumers can only afford one subscription in your category, several factors determine whether you survive:

Immediate, tangible value – Mastercard data shows 74% of consumers want all-in-one subscription management tools because they're overwhelmed by fragmentation. If your value isn't immediate and obvious, you're vulnerable. "Long-term benefits" don't cut it when people are making decisions monthly.

Financial accessibility – The brands winning in 2025 are those that either reduce their own costs or find ways to make their service financially accessible through partnerships, employer funding, or flexible payment models.

Values alignment – Adapty's research on psychological safety suggests consumers keep subscriptions that align with their identity and values, even at higher costs. If you're just another generic service, you're competing on price. If you're "the brand for people like me," you have stickiness.

Integration, not isolation – Standalone subscriptions are vulnerable. Services that integrate into broader platforms or ecosystems have dramatically better retention because cancelling them means losing access to an entire connected experience.

The B2B2C Strategic Advantage

Here's why the workplace benefits positioning matters so much: it completely changes the value proposition.

Consumer direct: "Pay us £30/month for wellness support" Workplace benefits: "Your employer provides this as part of caring for your wellbeing"

The first is a budget decision. The second is a benefit you're entitled to. Even if the underlying value is identical, the psychological positioning is completely different.

This isn't just theory. Brands that successfully pivot to B2B2C models see retention rates dramatically higher than consumer-direct equivalents because the financial friction point is removed. The consumer isn't constantly re-evaluating whether you're worth the money – that decision was made once at the employer level.

Making Yourself Essential

If you can't or won't pursue a B2B2C model, you need to become genuinely essential to your direct consumers. Here's what that requires:

Solve a real problem, not a theoretical one – "Help me be healthier generally" is aspirational. "Help me sleep better when stress is destroying my rest" is essential. The more specific and urgent the problem you solve, the harder you are to cancel.

Demonstrate ROI continuously – Whop's research showing 50% anticipate increased churn means consumers are actively evaluating value. If you can't articulate your ROI in terms users immediately understand, you're at risk.

Remove friction from everything – 74% want consolidated subscription management because friction is exhausting. Every login, every app, every separate platform increases the likelihood someone decides you're not worth the hassle.

Build habits, not just engagement – One-off usage makes you dispensable. Daily or weekly habits make you essential. The difference between "I used this three times last month" and "I use this every morning" is survival.

The Bottom Line

The subscription economy isn't dying – it's maturing. The era of endless growth through new subscriptions is over. What's replacing it is fierce competition for the limited subscription budget consumers have left.

You can fight that battle directly, competing for wallet share against rent and groceries. Or you can change the game entirely by becoming part of funded ecosystems where your service is a benefit, not a budget line item.

The brands that thrive through 2025 and beyond will be those that either achieve essential status through genuine, irreplaceable value – or find alternative funding models through B2B2C partnerships that remove financial friction entirely.

Your customers are making hard choices right now about which subscriptions stay and which go. The question isn't whether to adapt. It's whether you'll adapt fast enough to be the obvious choice when they can only afford one.