Pricing

The true cost of streaming in 2026

6 min read·Apr 10, 2026

When Netflix launched its first streaming-only plan in 2010, it cost $7.99 a month. The Premium plan today is $22.99 — a 188% jump in 16 years. Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Premium have all followed similar curves, especially since 2022.

If you signed up for a 'normal' set of streaming services in 2015 — Netflix, Spotify, and Hulu — you were paying around $25/mo. The same three plans today cost roughly $52/mo. And that's before you add Disney+, Max, Apple TV+, or YouTube Premium.

Why prices have moved so fast

Wall Street stopped rewarding subscriber growth and started demanding profit margins.
Content costs (sports rights, big productions) have grown faster than inflation.
Companies introduced cheaper ad-tier plans, which subsidizes raising the ad-free price.
Account-sharing crackdowns added 'household' fees that act as price increases by another name.

Compounding matters

Three streaming services at $52/mo costs $3,120 over 5 years. Invested at a 7% annual return instead, that's about $3,700 — roughly $580 of pure cost from compounding alone.

What to actually do

The most effective strategy isn't to cancel everything — it's to rotate. Most people use one streaming service heavily for 2–3 months, then drift. If you cancel and re-subscribe instead of holding all of them open in parallel, you'll cut 50–70% of streaming spend without losing access to anything you actually watch.

Use the Cut Simulator to see what happens when you remove the bottom two services from your list. It usually changes your monthly number more than you'd guess.