SpendWise App

Advanced Subscription Tracking & Management
In Production
B2C
Agentic AI
Subscription Models

Overview

In today’s digital-first world, people juggle countless subscriptions — from streaming and productivity tools to cloud storage and gyms. With payments spread across services and billing cycles, it’s easy to lose track, leading to surprise charges, duplicates, and rising expenses.
‍
This personal project offers a simple solution to help users stay organized, gain clarity, and make smarter decisions about their subscriptions.
My Roles
  • Solo Product Designer
  • Solo UX Researcher
Specifications
Duration:
  • December 23, 2024 -March 8, 2025
Tools:
  • Figma
Deliverables
  • Secondary Research & Screener Survey
  • One-on-one Interviews
  • Affinity Mapping & Empathy Mapping
  • Personas
  • JTBD & HWM Statements & User Stories
  • Heuristic Analysis
  • User Flows & Site Map
  • Low Fidelity Wireframes & Prototype
  • High Fidelity Wireframes & Prototype
  • Usability Testings

Impact

Satisfaction Rate
95%
Increased from 75% — boosted overall satisfaction after testing.
Task Completion
100%
Increased from 85% — boosted completion rate after iterations.
Swift UI & Python
Watsonx AI
Launched a new version enhanced with IBM’s latest AI model.
Problem

Subscriptions drain your wallet without you realizing

As more companies switch to subscription-based models, the days of one-time service purchases are largely gone. This shift often leaves people struggling to manage their growing number of subscriptions efficiently.
People tend to overspend and struggle to keep track of their subscriptions.
People struggle to track all of their subscriptions with multiple linked bank accounts .
People frequently forget to cancel free trials & subscriptions they no longer use.
How might we help people manage their subscriptions efficiently?
Solution

No more surprise charges

With the intention of solving subscription issues that struggles millions of people, I have designed an app that provides everything you need for simple, effective subscription management.
/ 01

upcoming charges & Free Trials

Connect your bank accounts and track all your subscriptions in one place. View upcoming subscriptions and catergorized subscriptions with ease.
/ 02

Real Time Analytics

Understand where your money goes to make better finanical descisions.
/ 03

Cancel Subscriptions & AI Recommendations

Say good bye to hard to cancel subscriptions & Get personal feedback with Jarvis AI.

Impact

01. Satisfaction rate: 7.5/10 → 9.5/10.
02. Task Success rate: 100%.
03. Launched an AI-focused version with Wastonx AI.
Solution

No more surprise charges

With the intention of solving subscription issues that struggles millions of people, I have designed an app that provides everything you need for simple, effective subscription management.
Subscriptions All In One Place.
Connect your bank accounts and track all your subscriptions in one place.
Upcoming Payments & More.
View upcoming subscriptions and catergorized subscriptions with ease.
Cancel Subscriptions Instantly.
Cancel subscriptions with SpendWise or by yourself within a few steps.
Real Time Analytics.
Understand where your money goes to and how to optimize spending.
Integrated AI Assistant.
Understand your spendings to make better financial decisions.
Secondary research  

Users are struggling and companies are only making it harder

According to studies, it seems like most people are having a hard time managing their subscriptions and have the tendency to over spent and forget about canceling. Surprisingly, most companies are "intentionally" making subscriptions harder to cancel through dark patterns.
User interviews

People worried about overspending and forgetting subscriptions

After 5 interviews with target users, I found that people are worried about overspending and forgetting to end subscriptions on time, which prevents them from signing up for new services.
Participant Attributes
user insights

wait, there's more to it.

Besides the fear of losing track on subscriptions, there are reasons of why people lost track easily and have a negative point of view on subscriptions. Here's what I've found: 
Tracking is hard across platforms
Users lose track when subscriptions are spread across multiple platforms or paid with different accounts.
Fear blocks new subscriptions
Even though users see the value of subscriptions, they hesitate to sign up due to fear of overspending or forgetting cancellations.
Reminders aren’t enough
Text, email, and calendar reminders help, but users still miss them due to spam or forgetting to set them up.
Spending is underestimated
All users underestimated their subscription costs and often forgot active subscriptions during interviews.
Subscription experience is frustrating
Users struggle with unclear plans, cancelation difficulties, and uncertainty about when services end.
See how I synthesize with Affinity mapping
Empathy Mapping & Personas

understanding and empathizing with users

By creating Personas, I have identified the needs, experiences, behaviors, goals, and pain points of the target users: 
‍
1. Young adults who have multiple subscriptions.
2. Working professionals who owns multiple credit cards. 
IDeation

Ideating the key features

I listed out the jobs, needs, and circumstances of the target users using the JTBD framework, came out with 4 HWM Statements, and created User Stories to focus on the MVPs.

User Flows & Site Map

After doing heuristic analysis on industry leaders such as Rocket Money, TrackMySubs, and One Main Trim, I brainstormed an app solution for tracking subscriptions. Here are the key user flows and site map of the app solution:

Wireframes & Prototyping

After rapid sketching to ideate app screens, I transformed my sketches into low-fidelity wireframes and prototyped them to test with users.

Design System

Here is a simplified design system that I have built.

Key Challenges

Here are the top 3 challenges that I encountered from the 2 rounds of usability tests on red routes with 10 participants in total: 
1. Users get confused by the mix of spent and upcoming spendings in Analytics. 
‍Users aren’t expecting to see spent and upcoming spendings coexisiting in Analytics, making data harder to interpret.
Final Solution ✅
  • Catergorize spent and upcoming spendings into sections.
  •  Remove "Yearly Spending" from the Dashboard and introduce "This Month’s Spending" along with statistics for "Spent" and "Upcoming" spending.
2. Users thinks the AI assistant should be easily accessible but not overly emphasized.
Users are having mixed preferences with the prominency of AI section on the Dashboard.
Final Solution ✅
  • Introduce AI Chat bot tab.
  • Remove the AI section from the Dashboard.
3. Users want to gain deeper insights into their subscriptions
Users want to gain deeper insights into recent price changes, apps they don’t use frequently, and more visual graphs for better analysis.
Final Solution ✅
  • Add indicators for price changes compared to the previous month.
  • Introduce  “Most Active Applications” section in Analytics. 
  • Introduce line graphs for data visualization.

Design validation

The design was validated through two rounds of usability testing and did not encounter errors during the final round. Here are the findings :
1. The design and navigation are intuitive
Users appreciate the app's intuitive design, user-friendly navigation, and appealing features and visuals.
2. Analytics and insights help making better decisions
Users find the analytics and insights about their subscriptions to be helpful.
3. Canceling subscription with ease
Users find it convenient to cancel subscriptions directly through the app with alternative ways provided.
4. Al chatbot for personalized recommendations
Users value the personalized recommendations provided by the app's integrated AI.
5. Custom payments for optional tracking
Users like the flexibility to add custom payments for subscriptions and free trials that aren’t connected to their bank accounts.

Final Design

After final iterations, here is the final design:
Final screens.v3Final prototype.v3

Takeaways  📖

1. Naming components differently for versions to avoid unwanted changes.
I duplicated the components into a new file to manually detach and recreate them for newer versions, which slowed down my productivity.
2. Project plans improves efficiency
‍I spent a day creating project plans for the upcoming months to increase time efficiency and hold myself accountable.
3. Weekly meetings with a mentor is a must
Meeting with a UI/UX mentor weekly has been extremely valuable, allowing me to grow and refine my skills while validating small design decisions before conducting usability tests.

If I have more time ⏳

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Let’s connect

Before AI does it for us

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© 2025 Darren Yang (Yun-Ling) | Made with endless coffee shots