For a group G and $m\ge 1$, let $G^m$ denote the subgroup generated by the elements $g^m$, where g runs through G. The subgroups not of the form $G^m$ are the nonpower subgroups of G. We classify the groups with at most nine nonpower subgroups.

No group has exactly one or two nonpower subgroups. We classify groups containing exactly three nonpower subgroups and show that there is a unique finite group with exactly four nonpower subgroups. Finally, we show that given any integer k greater than $4$ , there are infinitely many groups with exactly k nonpower subgroups.

Let $I(n)$ denote the number of isomorphism classes of subgroups of $(\mathbb{Z}/n\mathbb{Z})^{\times }$, and let $G(n)$ denote the number of subgroups of $(\mathbb{Z}/n\mathbb{Z})^{\times }$ counted as sets (not up to isomorphism). We prove that both $\log G(n)$ and $\log I(n)$ satisfy Erdős–Kac laws, in that suitable normalizations of them are normally distributed in the limit. Of note is that $\log G(n)$ is not an additive function but is closely related to the sum of squares of additive functions. We also establish the orders of magnitude of the maximal orders of $\log G(n)$ and $\log I(n)$.