“Cord cutting is cheaper than cable!” is rapidly joining inexpensive ridesharing and hoverboards on the list of the future’s broken promises to us, but even as streaming prices have eclipsed what we once used to pay for cable, there are ways to lower your monthly bills.
If you’re diligent and willing to commit a little time to the project, you can knock a significant amount of money off the cost of watching TV and movies on demand. Here are 10 strategies you can employ to keep your streaming bills as low as possible.
Perform a streaming audit
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The first step to saving money on your streaming bills is to perform a full audit of your subscription services. To get a clear-eyed view of everything you’re paying for, review your bank and credit card statements to make sure you have accounted for everything you’re paying for on a monthly or annual basis. Enter this information into a spreadsheet, or download Bobby, a no-frills app for iOs that exists for this purpose. Now ask yourself which services you watch the least, and which could do without. If you’re like me, this will give you a strong feeling of FOMO, so remind yourself that it doesn’t cost anything to cancel, and you can join back up with a click or two if the next Stranger Things suddenly appears out of nowhere.
Switch to an ad-supported plan
An ad for a toilet cleaner popping up in the middle of Rashomon might destroy Kurosawa’s delicate sense of mise-en-scene, but this is the world we’re living in. Many major streaming services are adding cheaper, ad-supported plans for people who want to pay less each month, and if you can put up with the ads, the savings can be significant. Basic, ad-free Netflix is $15.49 a month for instance, while the ad-supported plan is a mere $6.99. Hulu without ads will cost you $17.99, but sit through a few commercials and you’ll pay just $7.99.
Learn to love free streaming services
There are a ton of totally free streaming services out there—including The Roku Channel, Crackle, Freevee, Pluto TV, and more. If you can get over the feeling that you’re choosing your entertainment from the Island of Misfit Movies, these services offer all the entertainment you could ever watch, and totally for free (though you’ll have to sit through some ads). I highly recommend Tubi—it’s my favorite streaming service, free or paid. The commercials can be annoying, yes, but paid streaming companies are adding commercials too, so really, the only difference is the monthly bill.
“Churn” your streaming subscriptions
“Churning” is the process of unsubscribing or pausing your streaming service subscriptions when you know you aren’t going to be using them. For instance, I only like Severance on Apple TV+. When the show is between seasons, I can kill my subscription until new episodes reappear. There are a ton of tools and strategies that can make churning easier—Lifehacker has even created an in-depth guide to streaming service churning.
Take advantage of bundling offers
Bundling is when subscription services provide you cheaper rates for signing up for more than one service, or offer a discount connected to an unrelated product. For instance, on Sept. 6. 2023, Disney will roll out an ad-free streaming bundle with Disney+ and Hulu for $19.99 per month. That’s a 37% discount from their standalone plans.
There are too many promotions out there to get super specific with my advice here—just about any business might have a partnership with a streaming company—but a good place to start is with your cell phone provider. T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon all offer some kind of free or discounted streaming offer, and Apple seems to give out Apple TV+ subscriptions fairly liberally with the purchase of new devices.
But please, bundle responsibly: The reason companies offer these plans is to get their hooks in you, so if you only watch Hulu, adding Disney+ is not a discount, even if it only costs you a couple of bucks more.
Take advantage of free trials
If you’re disciplined about hitting the cancel button before you’re charged, you can stream a lot of television via free trials. Although it’s no longer as prevalent as it once was, plenty of services still give away a free month to new subscribers—including Apple TV+, Max, Hulu, and Prime Video. You can’t sign up twice for the same service, but your friend who is generous with their passwords can sign up when your month is over, as long as their billing info is different. Wham: you each got two months free.
Share passwords and profiles while you can
Netflix made a lot of noise recently by cracking down on password sharing. While there are ways around Netflix’s ban on password sharing, other streamers that have less draconian responses to sharing. Max’s official policy is to “frown upon” the practice. Hulu will let you have multiple logins, as long as you “check in” at your home base at least once a month. Apple TV+ doesn’t specifically prohibit password sharing, although that could change any day. You can take advantage of Amazon Prime’s Household feature to set up extra profiles—three can be active at once. (But make sure you trust whoever you let have a profile, as they could buy things with your account.) Peacock says it’s against their policy to password share, but you can have six profiles going, and they don’t seem to have cracked down on using them outside of your home—at least not yet.
The takeaway here: learn the restrictions and what you can get away with, take advantage of the rules, or if you’re feeling bold, break them. There’s no jail time for violating terms of service, although you could theoretically be banned from being a customer in the future.
Check your credit card offers
Many credit cards offer “rewards” aimed at streaming services. This Amex Blue Cash Preferred card, for instance, offers 6% cash back for money spent on streaming services. For broader, entertainment-based card rewards, Capitol One’s Savor One card gives you a 3% return on streaming, restaurants, and groceries. Many of these cards also offer special promotions on specific streaming services, and those can add up too. While 3% isn’t the hugest discount, if you’re using a credit card to pay for your streaming, it might as well be a little cheaper.
Sign up for an annual plan instead of paying monthly
For most streaming services, you can save a little money if you pay for a whole year up front. So if you know you’re not going to stop watching Paramount+ in the next year, buy it annually and save a little money. Niche streamer The Criterion Channel is $11 a month or $100 a year, essentially giving you nearly three months free for committing. This option makes “churning” impossible for that service of course, but it’s an option.
Take advantage of student discounts
It’s a great time to be a student who streams. Peacock will give you a year of its service for $1.99 a month. Hulu’s student streaming deal knocks the price of the ad-supported plan from $7.99 a month to $1.99. Amazon has one of the most generous student discounts—Prime Video is free for six months, and $7.49 a month after that, for as long as you stay in school, and in addition, you get free shipping from Amazon, Amazon Music, Prime gaming, and more.