SubZero Digital

The Problem#

• The average person has 23 active digital subscriptions — streaming, cloud storage, fitness apps, news, software licences, gaming, meal kits
• When they die, these subscriptions continue charging their credit card or bank account until someone notices and cancels each one individually
• Families don’t know what subscriptions exist — they only discover them as charges appear on bank statements, one by one, over months
• Each platform has a different cancellation process: some require a phone call, some require a death certificate, some require a notarised letter, and some have no death-specific process at all
• Ireland’s position as a European tech hub means many of these subscription providers are headquartered there — making Irish probate law the relevant jurisdiction for data access requests

How They’d Use INHERIT#

• Each subscription is a subscription.json entry with serviceName, cost, billingFrequency ("monthly", "annual"), renewalDate, and accountIdentifier
• cancelAction specifies the intended outcome: "cancel", "transfer_to_person", "maintain", or "unknown"
• cancellationInfo records the practical details: difficulty ("easy", "medium", "hard"), cancellationUrl, cancellationPhone, noticePeriod, deathCertificateRequired, and refundAvailable
• transferToPersonId references a person.json entry if the subscription should be transferred to a family member (e.g. a shared Netflix account)
• The ireland extension handles capitalAcquisitionsTax thresholds — relevant if subscription assets (e.g. a transferable software licence) have value

The Integration#

• Import-focused: SubZero receives INHERIT documents from estate planning platforms, solicitors, and executors
• The system automatically generates a cancellation task list, prioritised by charge frequency and refund eligibility
• For each subscription, SubZero contacts the provider with the structured data and death certificate, following the platform’s specific cancellation pathway

The Business Case#

• The average estate saves €340 per year in subscription charges that would otherwise continue indefinitely
• SubZero charges a flat €99 per estate — typically recouped within the first month of cancelled charges
• Across 3,000 estates per year, SubZero recovers approximately €180,000 in refunds from providers that offer pro-rata death refunds
• The structured cancellationInfo data means a task that currently takes a family member 20 minutes per subscription takes SubZero’s automated system 90 seconds

Before / After#

Without INHERIT:

1. Person dies; their credit card continues charging 23 subscriptions totalling €28 per month
2. The family cancels the obvious ones — Netflix, Spotify, Amazon Prime — after finding the passwords
3. Four months later, the executor notices charges from services nobody recognises: a cloud backup, a language app, a wine club, and a VPN
4. Each cancellation requires a separate process; three providers demand a notarised death certificate posted to a US address
5. After eight months and 12 hours of phone calls, 19 of 23 subscriptions are cancelled; four are still charging

With INHERIT:

1. The estate plan includes subscription.json entries for all 23 services, each with cancelAction and cancellationInfo
2. SubZero receives the INHERIT document and generates a prioritised cancellation list
3. All 23 subscriptions are cancelled or transferred within 10 working days
4. Three providers issue pro-rata refunds totalling €85; the family’s net cost is €14