Most of us are paying for subscriptions we barely use — and they usually started as free trials we forgot to cancel. The subscription economy is built on that forgetting: card details up front, cancellation paths buried three menus deep, price rises announced in emails nobody reads.
The UK government has a name for it now: subscription traps. New protections expected around 2027 will force clearer reminders before trials convert and make cancelling easier. That's welcome, but it won't tell you what to watch, read, or play instead.
Everything here is free forever, not a trial that quietly starts charging you.
That's where Genuinely Free comes in. The name is the promise. We show you what's free right now: BBC iPlayer, ITVX, Channel 4, library apps like Libby and BorrowBox, ad-supported music, free museums, parkrun, free courses, free-forever AI tiers, fee-free basic bank accounts, free-to-play games, and more.
The most valuable part might be Money You're Owed — real UK entitlements like broadband social tariffs, Warm Home Discount, Council Tax Reduction and Pension Credit that millions of people qualify for and never claim. We never ask for your financial details; every entry links straight to the official gov.uk or provider page, because our job is pointing you to what's real, not replacing the official source.
The trial tracker and subscription audit are there as backup, because the best way to beat a subscription trap is to never need the subscription in the first place.
One boundary worth stating: our sibling project £1 A Day is a personal budget challenge. Our Free Food, Serious Support and Wellbeing Support sections are different — they're real support for crisis, money worries, mental health and bereavement, treated with care and never gamified. The weight-management entry is a signpost to the NHS's own service, not in-app advice. The two stay deliberately distinct.
What we won't list: gambling, "free holidays", or credit and debt products. No free bets, no casino promotions, no "no deposit" offers, however they're dressed up. No 0% interest credit cards or other borrowing dressed up as a deal. Same reason we'd never list payday loans or buy now, pay later — a thing that can cost you money later isn't free. That's a firm line, not a gap waiting to be filled.
The test for everything else is the same: genuinely free, no purchase necessary, no hidden financial catch. Where something is free but needs an app signup or a loyalty account, we say so plainly rather than pretending there's nothing to hand over.
No account, no upsell, no premium tier. That would rather miss the point.
— The Genuinely Free team