9 must-have paid subscriptions for 2021

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A majority of us choose the 'free' option when it comes to taking subscriptions for various services. The trouble is that most of these free subscriptions offer limited features, which ruin the service's overall experience. Here are the top services for which you should pay to get the most out of their offerings.

Google One Storage: This one, in our opinion, is a must-have for everyone. Google offers free storage, shared across mail, photos and cloud storage, but that is just 15GB, which tends to get full quickly. Instead of taking the route of deleting files or opening another google account, get a 100GB Google One Plan for just Rs 1,300 per year. You will no longer have to worry about deleting emails or any photos for years to come.

Microsoft Office 365: There are several free office editing applications available, but for the majority of the users, Microsoft Office is the preferred option. This is why investing in the Office 365 subscription service is a no brainer. Not only do you get access to all the Microsoft Office programs, but you also get 1TB of cloud storage to store your documents and any other data. The individual plan costs Rs 4,199/year, or you can pay Rs 420 per month.

OTT Services: The OTT service market in India is booming, and you have a plethora of options available. We recommend getting Amazon Prime Video (Rs 999/year), Disney+Hotstar (Rs 1,499/year), Netflix (Rs 499/month onwards) and Apple TV (Rs 99/month) at least to have a variety of movies, TV shows and originals available for consumption. Besides these, you also have options of SonyLIV, Hooq, Voot, MX Player, Zee 5, Jio Cinema and so on as per your requirements.

Food Delivery: Why would you need a premium subscription to a food delivery service when they already deliver food with a free account? The answer to that question is – additional services and savings, which are usually way more than the price you pay for the paid plans. Zomato offers a Pro subscription service for Rs 200 (3 months), which gives you an extra discount on orders and a faster delivery option. Swiggy has Swiggy Super, which waives delivery charges, removes any surge fees, and you also get free add-on items in your orders for Rs 149/month.

Caller ID & Spam Detection: Spam calls and messages continue to be one of the most significant peeve points for users today. This is one reason for the immense success of Truecaller in India – the app identifies spam calls and messages that can then be disconnected or ignored by the user. While the free tier works great, the paid plan for Truecaller is worth investing in as well. You get the option of knowing who viewed your profile, removes ad banners in the app, adds advanced blocking features, adds a premium badge on your profiles and lets you view profiles of others without alerting them. You can get it for Rs 549/year or Rs 10 for the first month and then Rs 49 for subsequent months.

Apple One If you are an Apple user, then the Apple One subscription plan should be your priority. The Apple One subscription offers access to Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, Apple News+, Apple Fitness+ and 50GB of iCloud storage for Rs 195/month. This is the best way to enjoy all the services and features offers by Apple for its devices. Even non-Apple users can opt for the subscription plan and use it to enjoy various Apple services on their smartphones, smart TV and computers.

Shopping Services: Since most of us prefer to use online shopping services nowadays to get products and groceries, the premium account option is a no brainer investment. Amazon offers Amazon Prime (Rs 999/year), while Flipkart offers Flipkart Plus, which can be enrolled into depending on your shopping. Once you opt in to the plan, your delivery fees are waived off for all orders, and you get an option for priority fast delivery. Also, you get exclusive access to shopping deals in advance. Various other shopping services also offer premium account options with similar features such as BigBasket, Myntra, Paytm etc.

News Subscriptions: If you consume news online, then you would have noticed that more and more platforms now offer paid accounts, which give you exclusive access to content as well as remove any ads. Moneycontrol provides the service at Rs 99/month or for Rs 499/year, one of the most economical options. You can also opt for a digital newspaper subscription to choose the newspaper from their respective website if you prefer that format.

LinkedIn Premium: LinkedIn is the most used professional platform all over the world. While their free account gives you access to almost all features, they also have a premium account option. The advantage of going for the Premium account is that you get advanced features such as inMail messages, see who viewed your profile and access to learning courses. These can immediately boost your profile and help you land your next job faster. You get the first month for free to try out the service.