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Experian surveyed 761 consumers about their bill-paying habits on October 3, 2024. The sample was collected using a third-party company and was not from Experian's consumer credit database.
With apologies to Destiny's Child, "Bills, Bills, Bills" have only gotten worse since the group's No. 1 single lit up the FM band 25 years ago, according to an October 2024 Experian survey.
Rising costs of some of those bills are front of mind for many consumers, with about one-third of household income going toward bills annually, according to recent estimates. But the sheer volume of bills can cause a range of issues on their own. Often in the form of monthly subscriptions both used and paid for online, bills can become a juggling exercise as well as the source of a possible financial leak.
With that in mind, this month Experian asked more than 700 consumers about various aspects of bill payment to highlight what goes right or wrong, as well as how many more bills there are for many consumers to track.
Most Consumers Prefer Paying Bills Online
The battle of digital versus analog has long been decided in the bill-paying arena. Although a solid minority pay their obligations either in person or by mail, the vast majority of consumers go online, in one form or another, to keep their accounts current.
Part of this digital transformation has been built more recently than you might think. The majority of consumers were still paying their bills by check or cash as recently as 2006, according to a Pew Research Center report, while only 28% made electronic or online payments. By 2024, those percentages had broadly reversed.
Question: How do you usually pay your monthly bills?
And while online payments are used by a majority—58%—of bill payers, 38% say they use mobile apps to pay at least some of their bills. Less than half of respondents (42%) said they include automatic payments as part of their bill-paying strategy.
Meanwhile, the number of analog bill payers—those who go to the bank, post office or to a physical address to pay bills—is dwindling, but still exists in 2024: 17% will visit a location to make a payment, while 15% of consumers still affix postage.
Fingers and Strings, and Other Bill-Paying Tactics
As automatic bill pay isn't part of everyone's way to manage their finances, how often do consumers indicate they lose track of a bill?
Question: How often do you forget to pay a bill on time?
While 36% of consumers claim to never forget to pay a bill, most admit to letting a bill slip at least occasionally. More than half (56%) of consumers say they've forgotten to pay a bill rarely or sometimes, while another 8% admit to more chronic issues with remembering due dates.
Learn more >> How to Manage Your Monthly Subscriptions
Cutting the Cord and Switching to Streams
The sheer number of due dates may be a contributor to missed bill payments. Although mortgage or rent payments, electric and telephone bills have been part of household budgets for decades, additional bills have been layered on since. The typical U.S. consumer has four active credit cards to manage, for instance, more than in prior years.
For many, a prime example of this is the proliferation of online streaming services. Its predecessor, the cable bill, has been scattered to the four winds, making what was once a single consolidated bill into a collection of monthly subscriptions, each with its own particularly curated programming or function.
Apart from the issue of remembering which service is carrying "Twin Peaks," there are all the disparate, smaller payments consumers are absorbing. And although many of these subscriptions are likely paid via a credit card, debit card or online payment app, nearly a quarter of consumers who have trouble remembering bills claim to stub their toes on subscription services, according to our survey.
Question: Which type of bill do you find most challenging to remember to pay on time?
When we asked consumers about how many subscriptions they're currently carrying, three was the most likely response. One-quarter of bill payers said they have just one or two subscriptions to track, while an additional quarter said they manage four or five subscriptions. Further out on the curve, another 15% of consumers manage six to nine subscriptions each month, while 5% of consumers can't get by with fewer than 10 subscriptions each month.
Question: How many weekly or monthly services, memberships and subscriptions do you currently have?
Finally, when it comes to pruning their collections—and perhaps saving some money in the process—some consumers trim more frequently than others.
Question: How often do you cancel services that bill you weekly or monthly?
About half of consumers overall were more relaxed about their subscriptions, making changes once a year or less, if at all. Others, however, appear to be chasing the next best thing on TV, or what's become of it. And for 6% of consumers, changing subscriptions is as common as, say, paying the bills every month.
Consumers Overall Still Appear to Be Managing Credit Well
Despite the additional quantity of bills consumers are receiving, most appear to be managing their credit well in 2024. Some 2.40% of credit card accounts were 30 days or more delinquent in September 2024, which is only slightly higher than the 2.04% of accounts being 30 days or more delinquent in September 2019, according to Experian data.