Streaming Cost Calculator

Why the sticker price is not the bill

A single streaming plan looks affordable. The bill arrives when four of them stack, and the stack is what this calculator adds up. Four services at the $19.99 mid-tier price come to $79.96 a month, which is $959.52 a year. That is a car insurance payment, and most households never see the yearly number because each charge arrives separately.

The prices below come from the services themselves, checked in October 2026. Netflix lists Standard with ads at $8.99, Standard at $19.99 and Premium at $26.99 on its plans and pricing page. The Disney+, Hulu and HBO Max bundle is $21.99 with ads and $34.99 without on Disney's bundle page, and the Disney and Hulu duo is $12.99 with ads or $19.99 premium.

Two things follow from those numbers. The gap between the ad tier and the ad-free tier is not small: it runs $7 to $13 a month per service, which is $84 to $156 a year. And the gap between buying separately and buying a bundle is bigger than most people expect, because the bundle price is set below the sum of its parts on purpose.

Adding up a real stack: two services, five apps

Here is a stack a real household might carry: Netflix Standard at $19.99 and the Disney, Hulu and HBO Max bundle at $34.99. That is five apps for $54.98 a month, or $659.76 a year.

The difference is $288 a year, which is more than a month of groceries for a lot of households. That does not make the ad tier the right answer. It makes the choice visible, which is the point of putting both numbers on the same page.

Add a fourth service at $10.99 and the ad-free total moves to $65.97 a month and $791.64 a year. Add a fifth at $15.99 and the yearly figure passes $983. The calculator above handles that arithmetic for any mix, including the annual discount if a service offers one.

The ad tier gap: what $11 a month buys

Netflix prices Standard with ads at $8.99 and Standard at $19.99. The $11.00 gap buys no commercials, two streams instead of two, downloads on two devices, and the same 1080p picture. Per year the gap is $132.00.

Whether that is worth it depends on hours watched. Two hours a day is 730 hours a year, so $132 works out to 18 cents an hour. Twenty minutes a day is 122 hours, and the same $132 is $1.08 an hour. A service you keep for one show is the worst case for the ad-free upgrade.

There is a catch in the fine print. The ad-supported tiers do not carry every title, and some live content still runs ads even on the premium bundle. If a specific show is the reason you subscribe, check the plan's library before you trade down.

Annual plans: two months free, with a catch

An annual plan is the simplest discount in the category. Most services that offer one price it near 10 months of the monthly rate, which is a 16% to 17% saving. At a 16% discount, a $19.99 plan drops from $239.88 for 12 monthly payments to $201.50 prepaid, a saving of $38.38.

Netflix is the exception that proves the rule: its help page says plans are billed monthly and there is no annual, multi-month or lifetime option. So the 16% figure only applies to services that sell a year up front, and it should be set to zero for the rest.

The catch is commitment. Prepaying a year locks the price against increases, which is worth something in a category that raises rates most years. It also locks you in if the service drops the show you signed up for, and refunds are rare. Prepay only the service you would keep through a bad season.

Bundles beat a la carte, and the gap is large

The three-service bundle at $21.99 with ads replaces $35.97 of separate ad-supported plans, which is $13.98 a month or $167.76 a year. The Hulu plan page lists the same three services at $35.97 separately against the $21.99 bundle. The no-ads version at $34.99 replaces $47.97, a gap of $12.98 a month and $155.76 a year.

Bundling works because the services share a billing relationship and a churn risk. The discount is real, but it comes with two conditions. The bundle is usually one payment, so cancelling one service means cancelling the whole package. And the bundle price can rise as a unit, which hides which service got more expensive.

For a household that watches all three, the math is not close. For a household that watches one of the three, the bundle is a $21.99 subscription to one service plus two apps nobody opens, and the a la carte price of the one service is lower. Count the apps you open before you count the discount.

The once-a-year audit that pays for itself

Thirty minutes with a bank statement is the highest paid work in the streaming budget. List every recurring charge, the price, and the last time someone watched. Then sort into three piles: keep, rotate, cancel.

Rotating is the lever most households miss. Four services running all year at $19.99 is $959.52. One service at a time, switched every few months, is $239.88 for the same 12 months of viewing, just not all at once. The saving is $719.64, and the cost is waiting for a season to finish before you start it.

Shared accounts are the other lever, within the rules. Netflix charges $7.99 a month for an extra member with ads and $9.99 without, which is cheaper than a second full subscription but not free. Splitting a $79.96 stack three ways is $26.65 a person, or $319.84 a year, and it works best when one person pays and the others reimburse on a schedule.

Price increases are the quiet line item

Streaming prices rise most years, and the increase applies to existing accounts. Netflix moved Standard from $17.99 to $19.99 and Standard with ads from $7.99 to $8.99 in 2026. Two dollars a month sounds small until it lands on four plans: that is $96 a year, on top of the $959.52 you were already paying.

The pattern matters more than any single increase. A 5% annual rise on a $79.96 bill adds about $4 a month by year three and $8 a month by year six. Over 10 years the same stack costs roughly $12,600 instead of $9,595, and nothing about the service changed except the price.

Two habits blunt it. Check the bill in the same month every year, and reprice the stack against current offers, because the promotional price for a new customer is often lower than the loyal-customer rate. The second habit is to keep one service on an annual plan, which freezes its price for 12 months and turns the increase into a decision instead of a surprise.

Cost per hour: the only number that compares services

A $26.99 plan and a $8.99 plan are not comparable until you divide by hours watched. Two hours a day is 60 hours a month, so $26.99 works out to $0.45 an hour and $8.99 to $0.15. At 20 minutes a day the same plans cost $2.70 and $0.90 an hour.

That is the test for the fourth and fifth subscription. A service watched 3 hours a month at $19.99 costs $6.66 an hour, which is more than a rental, and rentals do not renew. A service watched 40 hours a month at the same price costs $0.50 an hour, which is the best entertainment value in the house.

Run the number for the whole stack, not one plan at a time. Four services at $79.96 and 100 combined hours a month is $0.80 an hour, which is fine. The same $79.96 for 20 hours a month is $4.00 an hour, and that is the moment to cut one plan and keep the one that earns its price.