Remember when cutting the cord meant saving money? Those days are over.
The average American household spent $278.50 per month on streaming and connected TV in 2025 — a 2% increase year over year, and more than many cable bills from a decade ago. Between Netflix, HBO Max, Disney+, Hulu, Peacock, Paramount+, and a growing list of niche services, the streaming tab has quietly crept up to rival the thing people left behind.
What happened? Price hike after price hike, most of them in the last two years. Netflix's standard ad-free plan has more than doubled since its early days. Disney+ launched in 2019 at $6.99/month and now runs $18.99 for the ad-free version. HBO Max added $1.50 to its standard tier in October 2025 alone. And Paramount+ just raised prices again in January 2026 — its second hike in 18 months.
Here's the full picture: every major streaming service, every current tier, and what they charged back in 2019 when the streaming wars were just heating up.
The Complete 2026 Streaming Price Table
| Service | With Ads | Ad-Free (Standard) | Ad-Free (Premium) | 2019 Starting Price | % Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Netflix | $7.99/mo | $17.99/mo | $24.99/mo | $8.99/mo | +178% (premium) |
| Disney+ | $9.99/mo | $15.99/mo | $18.99/mo | $6.99/mo | +172% (ad-free) |
| HBO Max | $10.99/mo | $18.49/mo | $22.99/mo | $14.99/mo (HBO Now) | +53% |
| Hulu | $7.99/mo | $17.99/mo | — | $5.99/mo | +200% (ad-free) |
| Amazon Prime Video | $8.99/mo (standalone) | $11.99/mo (standalone) | Included with Prime ($14.99/mo) | Included with Prime ($12.99/mo) | +15% |
| Apple TV+ | No ads | $12.99/mo | — | $4.99/mo | +160% |
| Peacock | $7.99/mo (Select) | $10.99/mo (Premium) | $16.99/mo (Premium Plus) | N/A (launched 2020) | — |
| Paramount+ | $8.99/mo | $13.99/mo | — | N/A (launched 2021) | — |
| ESPN+ | $11.99/mo | — | — | $4.99/mo | +140% |
| Spotify | Free (ad-supported) | $12.99/mo (Individual) | $22/mo (Family) | $9.99/mo | +30% |
| YouTube TV | — | $82.99/mo | — | $49.99/mo | +66% |
| Hulu + Live TV | $90/mo | $100/mo | — | $44.99/mo | +100% |
The Big Bundles: Where It Gets Expensive Fast
Individual prices are one thing. Bundles are where the real sticker shock lives.
- Disney Bundle (Disney+ + Hulu + ESPN+) — With ads: $16.99/mo. Without ads: $29.99/mo.
- Disney + Hulu only — With ads: $12.99/mo. Without ads: $19.99/mo.
- Disney + Hulu + HBO Max — With ads: $20/mo. Without ads: $33/mo.
- Comcast StreamSaver (Comcast customers only) — Netflix (with ads) + Peacock (with ads) + Apple TV+: $15/mo.
If you subscribe to three major services — say Netflix standard, HBO Max standard, and Disney+ ad-free — you're spending $52.47/month before adding any live TV. Add YouTube TV for the sports and news channels, and you're at $135/month. That's more than the average basic cable plan cost in 2019.
Service-by-Service Breakdown
Netflix — Netflix remains the biggest player with over 300 million subscribers globally. Its ad-supported tier at $7.99 is genuinely competitive, but the catch is that Netflix has been consistently raising the price of everything else. The standard ad-free plan jumped to $17.99 in early 2025, up from $15.49 — a 16% increase in one move. Netflix had pursued an $83 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery before backing out in early 2026 after Paramount Skydance made a higher bid; consolidation in the industry is far from over and could bring further pricing changes.
Best for: Original content depth, global catalog, family use on multiple screens.
HBO Max — After briefly rebranding to "Max" in 2023, the service added "HBO" back to its name in summer 2025 — and raised prices across all tiers in October 2025. The ad-supported Basic plan hit $10.99/month, Standard (ad-free) went to $18.49, and Premium hit $22.99. The irony: these prices are now higher than HBO's standalone streaming app ever was when the service first launched. HBO Max remains arguably the best catalog of prestige TV — White Lotus, Succession, The Wire, The Sopranos, Euphoria — but you're paying for it.
Best for: Prestige drama, HBO back catalog, Warner Bros. films.
Disney+ — Disney+ launched at $6.99/month in November 2019 with a deliberately loss-leader price designed to acquire subscribers fast. That strategy worked — and now subscribers are paying for it. The ad-supported plan is $9.99/month (up from $7.99 after the October 2025 hike) and the ad-free version is $18.99, more than doubling from launch. Disney is also in the process of absorbing Hulu into Disney+ as a single unified app, which means the standalone Hulu option is on its way out.
Best for: Families, Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, National Geographic.
Apple TV+ — Apple TV+ has the smallest library of any major streamer — deliberately so. Apple bets on quality over quantity, producing a handful of prestige originals like Severance, Slow Horses, Ted Lasso, and Silo rather than licensing massive catalogs. The price jumped from $9.99 to $12.99/month in August 2025, a 30% increase. New Apple device buyers still get three free months, which softens the blow for hardware purchasers.
Best for: High-quality originals only. Not worth it as a standalone service for most people unless you're actively watching something on it.
Amazon Prime Video — Prime Video is a strange case — it's bundled with Amazon Prime ($14.99/month or $139/year), which most households already have for the shipping benefits. Amazon added an ad-supported tier to Prime Video in 2024, meaning you now get ads unless you pay an extra $2.99/month to remove them. The standalone, non-Prime Video service runs $8.99/month (with ads) or $11.99/month (without). The big 2026 news: Amazon secured NBA streaming rights as part of an 11-year, $76 billion deal that starts with the 2025-26 season — giving Prime Video a major live sports draw for the first time.
Best for: Amazon originals, Prime shopping members getting streaming as a perk, NBA fans.
Peacock — Peacock's new $7.99/month Select tier offers a limited library but includes current NBC and Bravo seasons — a meaningful differentiator if you're a Bravo fan who doesn't want live TV. The Premium tier ($10.99/month) gives full library access with some ads. Premium Plus ($16.99/month) removes most ads. Peacock scored big with the Olympics in 2024 and continues to be the exclusive streaming home for NFL Sunday Night Football, which drives significant subscriber acquisition.
Best for: NBC shows, Bravo, live sports (Sunday Night Football, Premier League).
Paramount+ — The most aggressive recent price hiker. Paramount raised prices in January 2026 — its second increase in 18 months — bringing the Essential plan to $8.99/month and the Premium to $13.99/month. The reasoning given: a $7.7 billion, 7-year exclusive deal with UFC that makes Paramount+ the home for most UFC fights starting in 2026. If you don't care about UFC, you're subsidizing other subscribers' fight nights. If you do care about UFC, this is now a must-have. Paramount also ended its free trial in January 2026, effective immediately for new subscribers.
Best for: UFC, CBS shows (Survivor, Tracker), Star Trek, NFL on CBS.
The Numbers That Put It All in Context
Netflix's original U.S. streaming plan in 2010 cost $7.99/month. That same $7.99 today — adjusted for CPI inflation — would be worth about $11.60. Netflix now charges $24.99 for its top-tier plan. That's not inflation. That's pricing power.
The broader picture: streaming began as a disruption to cable. It was supposed to let you pay for only what you want, at lower cost. A household that subscribes to Netflix, HBO Max, Disney+, Peacock, and Paramount+ — a fairly typical mix — is spending roughly $70/month on streaming before any live TV. Add Hulu + Live TV or YouTube TV for sports and local channels, and you're at $150-165/month.
The average basic cable bill in 2019 was about $85/month.
What's Coming Next
The consolidation isn't over. Paramount is now under Skydance's ownership and has flagged further content investment (and likely further price increases). Disney is absorbing Hulu. Fubo and Hulu + Live TV completed their merger in late 2025, creating a combined vMVPD that continues to operate both brands.
Fewer companies. Bigger catalogs. Higher prices.
The one countervailing force: password sharing crackdowns have largely played out, and every service now has an ad-supported tier that's genuinely usable. The $7.99-$10.99 with-ads options are the streaming industry's concession that they pushed prices too high and needed a lower on-ramp. If you're willing to tolerate ads, you can still stream most major content for less than $50/month across three or four services.
But the golden era of streaming — cheap, ad-free, with every password shared across six friends — is definitively over.
Track streaming and subscription prices over time at the Streaming Wars Tracker, Netflix Index, and Spotify Index. See the full picture of what's inflated (and what's not) at What's Inflated Right Now.
Sources: Official pricing from Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, HBO Max, Peacock, Paramount+, Apple TV+, Amazon Prime Video, Spotify, YouTube TV, ESPN+; industry reports on average household streaming spend; BLS CPI for video and audio services.