General Motors told investors this week it expects to pull in $3.1 billion from digital subscriptions this year, and that its software arm keeps roughly 70 cents of every dollar it earns. For comparison, selling an actual car typically brings in just four to ten cents on the dollar. The message from Detroit's biggest automaker was plain: the real money isn't in building vehicles anymore. It's in billing the people who already bought them.
CEO Mary Barra delivered the numbers during GM's latest earnings update on Tuesday, framing the subscription push as a growth story with room to run. The Daily Mail reported that GM now claims around 13 million subscribers paying for various in-car services, from hands-free driving to navigation and connected features.
Barra told investors:
"We think there's a growth opportunity there with very attractive margins."
Attractive for whom is the question GM would rather not answer. Premium subscription packages can cost drivers more than $700 a year. And GM isn't alone. The entire auto industry is quietly shifting toward a model where the sticker price is just the beginning.
Ford's 2025 F-150 no longer includes the SecuriCode keypad, a feature that had been standard, unless buyers fork over an extra $455. BMW drew backlash for charging about $18 per month in some countries just to activate heated seats that were already physically installed in the car. Mercedes charges for extra performance in certain models. Tesla bills roughly $99 a month for its Full Self-Driving software. Toyota has experimented with charging for navigation.
New York-based analyst Lauren Fix laid out the scale of the shift. She told the Daily Mail that U.S. automakers pulled in roughly $2 billion to $4 billion in subscription revenue in 2025 alone, with total committed or deferred subscription revenue estimated between $5 billion and $8 billion.
Fix described a pattern: automakers offer features free for a trial period, then flip the switch to a monthly or annual charge. She estimated 30 to 50 percent of drivers keep paying after the free window closes. GM's own numbers for its Super Cruise hands-free driving system put the retention rate at about 40 percent, with the service on pace to reach 850,000 subscribers by year's end.
That retention rate means the majority of drivers who try these features decide they aren't worth the ongoing cost. But for GM, even a minority of payers adds up when the margins run seven times higher than selling the car itself.
Fix, who has tracked the industry's subscription experiments closely, warned that this approach has a shelf life. She pointed to past failures where manufacturers tried to monetize features drivers expected to own outright.
"In the past, BMW tried subscription fees for heated seats, Mercedes charges for extra performance in some models, Tesla charges for Full Self-Driving at about $99 a month, and other brands like Toyota have experimented with charging for navigation."
The result, she said, was predictable. Consumers and dealers both resisted.
"Consumers always push back, and so do dealers who are face-to-face with buyers."
Fix also flagged a practical problem that echoes the kind of driver frustration that has dogged other industry decisions made for corporate benefit rather than customer satisfaction. When automakers push drivers toward app-based alternatives like Apple CarPlay or Android Auto instead of built-in navigation, the experience degrades in areas with weak cell coverage.
"Having to rely on apps like Apple CarPlay or Android Auto is fine, until you only have one or two bars of signal. That creates frustration with the brand and erodes loyalty."
Her bottom line was blunt: brands that tried to charge for what consumers considered standard features eventually reversed course.
"The result we've seen in the past is that brands eventually roll these services back into the price because consumers won't pay extra."
Jackie Swanson, a retail and consumer strategist and managing partner at Gartner Consulting, described a broader transformation underway. She said consumers should brace for more aggressive pricing models, not fewer.
"We're going to see aggressive subscription bundling across the industry over the next 18 to 24 months. Manufacturing is quietly becoming a recurring revenue business."
Swanson framed the shift in terms Wall Street would recognize immediately, and that should concern anyone who just wants to buy a truck and drive it.
"The vehicle is the hardware, but the relationship, the data, the features, and the safety systems are where the ongoing revenue lies."
She went further, telling investors to start reading automaker earnings reports the way they read software-as-a-service companies. The metrics that matter, she said, are shifting away from units sold and toward recurring revenue per user.
That framing explains why GM's stock pitch now leads with subscription numbers. GM has been betting big on subscription fees as a profit engine, and the 70-cent-on-the-dollar margin makes the incentive obvious. Why fight for pennies on a $50,000 truck when you can collect hundreds a year from the driver who already owns it?
GM told investors it aims to generate up to $25 billion annually in software and subscription revenue by 2030. Stellantis has set a similar target of $23 billion, the New York Post reported in earlier coverage of the trend. Guidehouse Insights analyst Sam Abuelsamid offered a frank assessment of the strategy: "The approach that these companies are taking so far is certainly not customer friendly."
Fix highlighted a specific problem with GM's approach: unbundling. Services like SiriusXM and OnStar, once included as standard features, now carry separate charges. Each individual fee might seem modest. But stacked together, the monthly bill grows fast.
"Super Cruise and OnStar are strong products, but once you start stacking subscriptions, the monthly cost adds up quickly. Customers either skip them or complain, and that doesn't build long-term loyalty."
Chris Neiger, a contributing auto analyst at The Motley Fool, acknowledged GM's tactics as "smart" from a business standpoint but cautioned the company needs to stay transparent. His warning cut to the heart of the consumer frustration building across the market.
"Nobody wants to feel like they're being nickel-and-dimed on features years after they've driven their car off the dealer lot."
That sentiment captures something GM's earnings presentation glossed over. The 60 percent of Super Cruise trial users who decline to keep paying aren't confused about the product. They're making a clear judgment: the feature isn't worth the ongoing charge after they've already spent tens of thousands on the vehicle.
Fix offered a revealing explanation for why automakers are racing toward subscriptions now. The timing isn't accidental. It follows years of massive losses on electric vehicle programs that have yet to turn a profit for most legacy manufacturers.
"Automakers took huge losses trying to go all-electric, and many haven't made profits there. Now they're looking to make up the difference with subscription services. Some will succeed, but if it pushes up monthly costs, that's a real problem."
That connection deserves attention. GM has been ramping up gas-powered truck production to meet strong consumer demand, which remains the company's bread and butter. But the EV push, driven in large part by government mandates and regulatory pressure, left deep financial holes. Subscription revenue, with its fat margins, looks like the patch.
The pattern is familiar to anyone who has watched corporate America respond to policy-driven losses. The costs don't disappear. They get passed to the consumer in a different form. In this case, the form is a monthly charge for features that used to come with the keys.
GM's recent financial windfalls from tariff refunds haven't slowed the subscription push, either. The company appears committed to building a dual revenue stream: sell the hardware at thin margins, then monetize the software for years afterward.
The math is simple enough. A driver who buys a new GM vehicle and subscribes to the premium package faces more than $700 a year in recurring charges, on top of the car payment, insurance, fuel, and maintenance. Over a typical ownership period, that's thousands of dollars for features that a decade ago came standard or didn't exist at all.
GM was contacted for comment by the Daily Mail. Whether the company responded is unclear.
What is clear is the direction. Automakers are treating the car you already paid for as a platform to sell you access to the features inside it. The vehicle is the razor. The subscriptions are the blades. And the margins tell you everything about who this model is designed to serve.
When a company keeps 70 cents of every subscription dollar and only four to ten cents from selling the car itself, the incentives write the strategy. Drivers aren't the customer anymore. They're the revenue stream.