← All articles
a computer on a desk

Wallos: Self-Hosted Subscription and Recurring Payment Tracker

Finance 2026-02-14 · 8 min read wallos subscriptions finance budgeting payments
By Selfhosted Guides Editorial Team — Self-hosting practitioners covering open source software, home lab infrastructure, and data sovereignty.

Subscription creep is real. It starts with Netflix, adds Spotify, picks up a cloud storage plan, absorbs a gym membership, and before you know it you're paying $300/month across fifteen different services -- half of which you barely use. The average American household spends over $200/month on subscriptions, and studies consistently show that people underestimate their subscription spending by 2-3x.

Photo by Growtika on Unsplash

Tracking this manually in a spreadsheet works until it doesn't. You forget to add a new subscription, the prices change without you noticing, and annual subscriptions are easy to miss entirely. Dedicated subscription tracking apps exist (Truebill/Rocket Money, Bobby, Subly), but they either require bank account access, charge their own subscription fee (the irony), or store your financial data on their servers.

Wallos is a self-hosted subscription and recurring payment tracker. It gives you a clean dashboard showing every subscription you pay for, how much you spend monthly and annually, which payments are coming up next, and which subscriptions might be worth canceling. No bank account connections, no SaaS fees, and your financial data stays on your server.

Wallos subscription manager logo

Why Wallos

The subscription tracking space has several approaches. Here's where Wallos fits:

Wallos vs. Other Subscription Trackers

Feature Wallos Actual Budget Firefly III Rocket Money
Primary focus Subscription tracking Full budgeting Full finance mgmt Bill negotiation + tracking
Self-hosted Yes Yes Yes No
Bank connection No No (manual/import) Optional Required
Subscription tracking Dedicated Generic recurring Generic recurring Dedicated
Notifications Email + webhooks No Email Push + email
Price Free Free Free $4-12/month
Resource usage ~50 MB RAM ~100 MB RAM ~200 MB RAM N/A (SaaS)
Multi-currency Yes Limited Yes USD only

Choose Wallos when you specifically want subscription tracking with a clean dedicated interface. Choose Actual Budget or Firefly III when you want full personal finance management with budgeting, accounts, and transaction tracking. Choose Rocket Money if you want automated detection via bank connections and don't mind a SaaS.

Docker Compose Setup

Wallos is one of the simplest self-hosted apps to deploy:

# docker-compose.yml
services:
  wallos:
    image: bellamy/wallos:latest
    container_name: wallos
    ports:
      - "8282:80"
    volumes:
      - wallos_db:/var/www/html/db
      - wallos_logos:/var/www/html/images/uploads/logos
    environment:
      - TZ=America/Los_Angeles
    restart: unless-stopped

volumes:
  wallos_db:
  wallos_logos:

docker compose up -d

Navigate to http://your-server:8282 and create your admin account. The setup wizard walks you through initial configuration including your preferred currency and household name.

That's the entire setup. No database server, no Redis, no external dependencies. Wallos uses SQLite internally, which keeps the deployment trivially simple.

Wallos subscription manager dashboard showing tracked subscriptions

Adding Subscriptions

Manual Entry

Click "Add Subscription" and fill in:

Categories

Organize subscriptions into categories to understand where your money goes:

Custom categories can be created to match your specific spending patterns.

Payment Methods

Track which payment method is used for each subscription. This is useful for:

Like what you're reading? Subscribe to Self-Hosted Weekly — free weekly guides in your inbox.

Notifications and Reminders

Wallos can notify you before subscriptions renew, giving you time to cancel or downgrade before the next charge:

Email Notifications

Configure SMTP in the Wallos settings:

  1. Go to Settings > Notifications
  2. Enter your SMTP server details:
    • Server: smtp.fastmail.com (or your email provider)
    • Port: 465 (or 587 for STARTTLS)
    • Username: your email
    • Password: your app-specific password
  3. Set notification timing (e.g., 3 days before payment)
  4. Test the notification

Webhook Notifications

Wallos supports webhooks, which lets you integrate with almost any notification system:

Configure webhooks in Settings > Notifications > Webhooks. The payload includes subscription name, amount, currency, and payment date.

Notification Strategy

A practical notification setup:

  1. 7 days before annual renewals -- Annual subscriptions are the easiest to forget and often the most expensive. A week's notice gives you time to evaluate whether to renew.
  2. 3 days before monthly renewals -- Quick reminder for monthly subscriptions.
  3. Immediate notification on price changes -- When you update a subscription's price, Wallos can track the change history.

Analytics and Insights

Wallos provides several analytics views to understand your subscription spending:

Monthly Overview

The main dashboard shows:

Category Analysis

Drill into categories to see:

This often reveals surprising patterns. Many people discover their "cloud and infrastructure" spending (hosting, domains, SaaS tools) exceeds their entertainment subscriptions.

Spending Trends

Over time, Wallos builds a history of your subscription spending:

This historical view is valuable during annual budget reviews.

Multi-Currency Support

If you pay for services in different currencies (common for international users or businesses):

Exchange rates are fetched from a free API and updated regularly. You can also manually set exchange rates if you prefer fixed-rate budgeting.

Household Management

Wallos supports tracking subscriptions across household members:

This is useful for families where different members have their own subscriptions but you want a unified view of total household spending.

Reverse Proxy Configuration

Caddy

subscriptions.yourdomain.com {
    reverse_proxy wallos:80
}

Nginx

server {
    listen 443 ssl;
    server_name subscriptions.yourdomain.com;

    ssl_certificate /path/to/cert.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /path/to/key.pem;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://localhost:8282;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    }
}

Backup and Restore

Wallos stores everything in SQLite, making backups trivial:

# Backup the database and logos
docker run --rm \
  -v wallos_db:/db \
  -v wallos_logos:/logos \
  -v $(pwd)/backups:/backup \
  alpine sh -c "
    tar czf /backup/wallos-$(date +%Y%m%d).tar.gz -C /db . &&
    tar czf /backup/wallos-logos-$(date +%Y%m%d).tar.gz -C /logos .
  "

For automated backups, add this to a cron job:

# crontab -e
0 3 * * 0 docker run --rm -v wallos_db:/db -v $(pwd)/backups:/backup alpine tar czf /backup/wallos-$(date +\%Y\%m\%d).tar.gz -C /db .

Practical Workflow: The Quarterly Subscription Audit

Wallos enables a powerful budgeting practice: the quarterly subscription audit.

Step 1: Review the Dashboard

Open Wallos and look at your total monthly spend. Is it higher than you expected? (It usually is.)

Step 2: Category Deep Dive

Go through each category and ask:

Step 3: Check Upcoming Renewals

Look at annual subscriptions renewing in the next 90 days. These are your highest-impact decisions -- canceling a $120/year subscription saves $10/month.

Step 4: Act on Decisions

For each subscription you decide to cancel or change:

  1. Cancel or modify the subscription with the provider
  2. Update the entry in Wallos (mark as canceled or adjust the price)
  3. Note the savings

Step 5: Track Progress

Compare this quarter's total to last quarter's. Wallos's historical data makes this comparison easy.

Most people who do this audit for the first time find $50-100/month in subscriptions they forgot about or no longer use. That's $600-1,200/year recovered.

Integration with Other Finance Tools

Wallos focuses specifically on subscription tracking, but it complements broader finance tools:

Who Should Use Wallos

Wallos is for anyone who:

The Docker setup takes two minutes, adding your subscriptions takes fifteen minutes, and the ongoing maintenance is close to zero. For the clarity it brings to your recurring spending, Wallos is one of the highest-value self-hosted applications per minute of setup time.

Get free weekly tips in your inbox. Subscribe to Self-Hosted Weekly