Axe: A Smarter Subscription Management App

Axe is an Android subscription management app designed to help users track, analyze, and control recurring expenses. From streaming platforms and AI tools to cloud services, delivery apps, gaming subscriptions, and fitness memberships, Axe gives users a clear view of where their money goes every month.

The app focuses on one simple idea: recurring payments should not feel invisible. Axe turns hidden monthly costs into visible, actionable insights.

The vision behind Axe was to build a practical financial utility with personality. Instead of creating another plain expense tracker, the goal was to design an app that helps users “cut” unnecessary subscriptions, understand their spending habits, and make better decisions before recurring charges pile up.

Axe was built for people who sign up for multiple digital services, forget trial periods, or underestimate how much small monthly payments add up over time.

- *Subscription Dashboard*: View all active subscriptions in one place with monthly cost summaries.

- *Monthly Burn Meter*: Instantly see total recurring spend normalized across weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly billing cycles.

- *Labor Cost Mode*: Convert subscription spending into work hours based on the user’s hourly wage.

- *Custom Subscription Entry*: Add services manually with price, billing date, category, cycle, and cancellation URL.

- *Catalog-Based Adding*: Quickly activate predefined subscription templates.

- *Trial Tracking*: Mark subscriptions as trials and set trial end dates.

- *Category Analytics*: Break down monthly spending by categories such as Entertainment, AI & Tools, Cloud & Software, Gaming, Health & Fitness, and more.

- *Subscription Graveyard*: Deactivate subscriptions and keep a history of services the user has cancelled.

- *Local Settings*: Customize currency symbol and hourly wage preferences.

Axe was developed as a native Android application using:

- *Kotlin* for application logic

- *Android SDK* for native mobile development

- *XML Layouts* for UI structure

- *Material Components* for navigation, chips, tabs, switches, and polished controls

- *Room Database* for local subscription storage

- *LiveData* for reactive UI updates

- *Kotlin Coroutines* for asynchronous database operations

- *ViewBinding* for safer and cleaner view access

- *WorkManager* for planned reminder and notification workflows

- *Google AdMob* for ad integration

- *Google Play Billing* for future premium monetization support

One of the main challenges was converting different billing cycles into a single meaningful monthly value. Weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly subscriptions all needed to be normalized so users could understand their real recurring cost without doing manual math.

Another challenge was balancing utility with personality. Axe needed to feel useful and financially serious, while still keeping a memorable brand identity through language like “monthly burn,” “forge subscription,” and “subscription graveyard.”

The app also required careful local data handling. Since subscription information can be personal, Room Database was used to keep data stored locally and make the app fast, private, and responsive.

The user experience was designed around fast decision-making. The dashboard gives users an immediate overview of active subscriptions and total monthly spend. From there, they can add new subscriptions, inspect analytics, or remove services they no longer need.

The interface uses a bottom navigation structure, making the main sections easy to reach:

- Dashboard

- Add Subscription

- Analytics

- Graveyard

- Settings

Material UI components such as tabs, chips, switches, progress indicators, and RecyclerViews create a familiar Android experience. Categories and billing cycles are presented as selectable controls, reducing friction and keeping data entry simple.

The overall design goal was clarity first: users should understand their spending within seconds of opening the app.

Axe follows a clean native Android structure with separated responsibilities across UI fragments, adapters, and database components.

The core architecture includes:

- *Fragments* for each primary screen, including Dashboard, Add Subscription, Analytics, Graveyard, and Settings.

- *Room Database* as the local persistence layer.

- *DAO Methods* for inserting, updating, activating, deactivating, and observing subscription data.

- *RecyclerView Adapters* for rendering active subscriptions, catalog templates, and cancelled items.

- *LiveData Observers* to automatically refresh the UI when subscription data changes.

- *SharedPreferences* for lightweight user settings such as currency and hourly wage.

- *Coroutines* for database writes without blocking the main thread.

This structure keeps the app responsive and maintainable while supporting future features like reminders, premium plans, cloud sync, and deeper analytics.

Axe delivers a focused solution to a common modern problem: subscription overload. By turning recurring expenses into clear numbers, categories, and decisions, the app helps users regain control over their digital spending.

The project demonstrates strong native Android development, local database design, financial logic, clean UI architecture, and product-focused thinking. More importantly, it shows how a simple utility app can become more engaging when technical execution is paired with a clear brand concept and thoughtful user experience.