Subtle vs ReSubs: cross-platform, or iOS-native depth?

The same instinct, two different bets.

ReSubs and Subtle started from the same conviction: linking your bank to track your subscriptions is the wrong trade. You shouldn't have to hand over your full transaction history to a third party just to know what Netflix charges you.

From that shared starting point, we made opposite calls. ReSubs decided that more people deserve a privacy-first tracker, on whatever device they happen to use — so they went cross-platform: iOS, Android, web, all maintained in parallel. That's a hard, valuable thing to build.

Subtle decided to go the other direction. Cross-platform always means lowest-common-denominator integrations — you can't use a Share Extension on Android, you can't have Siri shortcuts on web, you can't read Visual Intelligence on Windows. We picked iOS-only on purpose, and used the depth to build things ReSubs structurally can't.

"Cross-platform privacy and iOS-native privacy aren't the same product. They're different bets on what 'good' means."

If you live across platforms, ReSubs' bet is the right one for you. If you live on iPhone, ours probably is.

iOS-native depth: what cross-platform can't do.

Here's what "iOS-only" actually buys, in practice:

• Share Extension. See a billing email in Mail? Tap Share, pick Subtle. The image goes straight into the capture flow. No screenshot, no cropping, no app-switching.
• Lock Screen widgets. Your next charge, today's spend, this month's total — visible without unlocking. ReSubs has home screen widgets; Lock Screen requires iOS-specific work.
• Siri shortcuts. "Hey Siri, log a subscription." Useful when you've just signed up for something at a desk and don't want to forget by the end of the week.
• Visual Intelligence (iPhone 16+). Long-press the camera button on a billing screen — Subtle is one of the actions. This integration only exists on iPhone 16 and up; cross-platform apps can't ship it.
• On-device OCR. First-pass extraction runs locally with iOS's Vision framework. Faster, and the cleanest privacy answer: a lot of scans never leave your device at all.

None of this is theatre. It's why a typical Subtle capture takes 3 seconds and a typical ReSubs capture (paste image → upload → wait → confirm) takes 10–15.

Pricing: $4.99 vs $10.

ReSubs Premium is $10/month. Subtle Pro is $4.99/month, or $39.99/year (about $3.33/month annualized).

Both prices are reasonable for what they include. ReSubs has to fund Android engineering, web maintenance, and iOS — three platforms is roughly three times the work. Subtle only ships on iOS, so the same revenue per user funds more iOS-specific depth.

If you need cross-platform, ReSubs' price reflects real engineering. If you're iOS-only, you'd rather not subsidize the platforms you don't use.

When ReSubs is the better choice.

Use ReSubs if any of these are true:

• You actively use both iOS and Android, or move between phones
• You want to view your subscriptions from a laptop (web app)
• You're on Android specifically — Subtle isn't available there
• You want a tool the whole family can use across devices

ReSubs is a real, well-built product. We're not pretending it isn't.

When Subtle is the better choice.

Use Subtle if any of these are true:

• Your primary device is an iPhone and probably always will be
• You want capture to feel native — share from any app, no copy/paste, no upload waits
• You'd use a Lock Screen widget for "next charge"
• You're on iPhone 16+ and want Visual Intelligence to work with a subscription tracker
• $4.99/month vs $10/month is a meaningful difference for you

If you've ever been mildly annoyed that a privacy-first tracker still asked you to copy a screenshot, paste it, wait for upload, and confirm — Subtle was built to remove every step of that.

Common questions.

Are Subtle and ReSubs equally private? Functionally yes — both refuse bank linking, both process images server-side for AI extraction (Subtle adds first-pass on-device OCR), both publish privacy policies. Subtle keeps slightly less by default because the iOS app stores records locally + iCloud rather than in a cloud account.

Will Subtle ever come to Android? Not in the foreseeable future. Going cross-platform would mean cutting all the iOS-native integrations that make Subtle worth using — and we'd rather make one excellent thing than two mediocre ones. If demand is overwhelming, we'll reconsider.

Can I migrate from ReSubs to Subtle? Yes. Export your subscriptions from ReSubs (CSV) and import into Subtle. The fields map cleanly.

Is Subtle's AI extraction as accurate as ReSubs'? Comparable, in our testing. We publish field-level accuracy on the homepage and update the numbers monthly — service name 98%, amount 97%, billing cycle 94%, next charge 91% (n=500). ReSubs doesn't publish their numbers in the same way, so a head-to-head is hard to verify.