11 min read
I currently pay for six streaming services. Six. That’s roughly $85 a month before taxes, and I still can’t find anything to watch on a Friday night. If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone. The average American household now subscribes to four or more streaming platforms, and the total monthly cost has quietly crept past what most people used to pay for cable.
The promise of streaming was simple: pay less, watch more, skip the commercials. In 2025, that promise is mostly broken. Prices have gone up across the board, ad-supported tiers are the new default, and content libraries overlap in confusing ways. Every studio wants its own platform, which means the shows and movies you actually want are scattered across half a dozen apps.
So I spent the last few months doing what any reasonable person would do: I subscribed to every major streaming service, used each one for at least three weeks, and tracked what I actually watched versus what I was paying for. Here’s what I found.
The Current Pricing Breakdown
Before we get into quality, let’s talk money. As of early 2025, here’s what each service charges for their most popular plans (ad-free where available):
Netflix Premium runs $22.99/month. Their Standard plan with ads is $6.99, and the ad-free Standard is $15.49. Disney+ Premium is $13.99, with their ad tier at $7.99. Max (formerly HBO Max) charges $16.99 for ad-free, $9.99 with ads. Apple TV+ is the cheapest premium option at $9.99. Amazon Prime Video is technically $8.99 for the video-only plan, but most people already pay $14.99 for full Prime membership. Hulu runs $17.99 ad-free or $7.99 with ads. Peacock Premium is $13.99 without ads, $7.99 with them. And Paramount+ charges $11.99 for their top tier.
According to Statista’s streaming market data, the average household streaming spend hit $61 per month in late 2024, up from $48 just two years earlier. That growth isn’t because people are watching more content. It’s because every service raised prices by 20-40% while simultaneously pushing users toward ad-supported plans.
Netflix: Still the Default, But For How Long?
Netflix remains the biggest player by subscriber count, and their content library is genuinely massive. But here’s the thing most people don’t realize: the library has been shrinking for years. Licensed content from other studios keeps disappearing as those studios funnel everything to their own platforms. What’s left is increasingly Netflix Originals, and the quality there is wildly inconsistent.
For every “Squid Game” or “Wednesday,” there are dozens of shows that get canceled after one season. Netflix’s algorithm-driven approach to greenlighting content means they produce an enormous volume of stuff, but very little of it has staying power. They’ve gotten better at prestige TV in the last year or two, but the cancel-happy reputation still stings.
The interface is solid. Recommendations work reasonably well if you’ve been using the service for a while. The download feature for offline viewing is reliable. And the simultaneous streams situation is fine on the Standard plan (two screens) but feels stingy given the price.
My take: Netflix is a good service but no longer an essential one. If you’re paying for Premium at $22.99, you should seriously ask whether you’re getting $23 worth of content every month that you can’t find elsewhere.
The password-sharing crackdown was the other major Netflix story of the past year. After years of tacitly allowing it, Netflix started requiring users to verify their household and charging extra for members outside the home. It worked financially – Netflix gained subscribers after the crackdown, suggesting many people chose to pay rather than lose access. But it also generated genuine resentment from users who felt punished for a behavior Netflix had previously encouraged. If the crackdown means you need your own account, make sure you’re using a strong, unique password – our password generator can help with that. If you’re splitting the cost of a Netflix household with family or friends, the per-person economics still work out. Just don’t expect it to stay that cheap forever.
One area where Netflix deserves credit is their investment in international content. Shows like “Dark,” “Money Heist,” and “Squid Game” proved that subtitled foreign-language programming can become global hits. The platform’s international original slate is one of its genuine differentiators – you won’t find this breadth of Korean, Spanish, German, and Indian content on any other English-language service.
Max: The Best Content Library Nobody Talks About
If I had to keep only one streaming service, it would be Max. This is probably a controversial opinion, but hear me out. Max has the entire HBO back catalog, which is arguably the best collection of prestige television ever assembled. The Sopranos, The Wire, Succession, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Game of Thrones (yes, even with that ending), Barry, Hacks, The White Lotus, and dozens more.
On top of that, they have the Warner Bros. film library, which includes everything from the Harry Potter franchise to Christopher Nolan’s films to classic cinema. The DC content is there too, for whatever that’s worth these days. And their new originals have been consistently strong: “The Penguin,” “True Detective: Night Country,” and “Industry” all landed well with critics and audiences.
The downsides are real, though. The app itself has improved dramatically since the HBO Max days but still occasionally bugs out. The search function can be frustrating. And the $16.99 ad-free price is steep, though I’d argue the content justifies it more than Netflix’s $22.99 Premium tier.
Max also has an underrated documentary library, inheriting content from Discovery+ after the Warner Bros. Discovery merger. If you’re into nature documentaries, true crime, or history docs, there’s a deep back catalog here. The merger with Discovery content added bulk without diluting the quality of the HBO side, which was a legitimate concern when the merger was announced. The result is a service that works for both “I want to watch a critically acclaimed drama” and “I want to watch people build things in the wilderness” moods.
Disney+: Great for Families, Diminishing Returns for Everyone Else
Disney+ launched with a killer pitch: the entire Disney vault, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and National Geographic, all for $6.99 a month. That price is long gone, and the value proposition has shifted significantly.
If you have kids under 12, Disney+ is basically mandatory. The children’s content library is unmatched. But for adults without children, the calculus is different. Marvel fatigue is real and well-documented. The Star Wars shows have been hit-or-miss (Andor was excellent; most of the others were forgettable). And outside of those two franchises, Disney+ originals for adults are sparse.
The Hulu bundle changes things somewhat. Disney now offers Disney+ and Hulu as a combined package, which gives you a much broader content library. If you’re going to subscribe, the bundle is clearly the better deal. According to Nielsen’s streaming viewership data, Hulu actually gets more watch time from adults than Disney+ does, so the bundle makes the Disney+ subscription feel more complete.
Apple TV+: Small Library, Surprising Quality
Apple TV+ is the oddball. They have the smallest content library of any major streamer by a wide margin. You could probably watch everything notable on the platform in two months. But here’s the thing: the hit rate is remarkably high.
“Severance,” “Ted Lasso,” “The Morning Show,” “Slow Horses,” “Shrinking,” “Silo,” “Lessons in Chemistry” – Apple has been quietly producing some of the best television on any platform. They’re spending huge amounts per show and it shows. The production values are consistently top-tier.
At $9.99 a month, it’s reasonably priced. And if you buy any Apple device, you get a few months free, which is often enough time to catch up on everything. My recommendation: subscribe for two or three months, binge the shows you’ve been meaning to watch, then cancel until enough new stuff accumulates. Apple makes this easy since there’s no contract.
Amazon Prime Video: The One You Already Have
Most people don’t think of Prime Video as a separate purchase because it comes bundled with Amazon Prime. And honestly, that bundling is doing a lot of heavy lifting, because Prime Video on its own merits is middling.
The originals are inconsistent. “The Boys,” “Reacher,” and “Fallout” are standouts. “The Rings of Power” was expensive but divisive. A lot of their catalog is filled with low-budget acquisitions that pad the numbers but aren’t things you’d actually choose to watch.
The worst part of Prime Video is the interface. It’s genuinely bad. Finding content is confusing because Amazon mixes in movies and shows that require additional rental or purchase fees, and the distinction isn’t always clear. You’ll click on something thinking it’s included with your subscription and then get hit with a $5.99 rental charge. The “Channels” system, where you can add subscriptions to other services through Amazon, adds another layer of confusion.
If you already pay for Amazon Prime for the shipping, then Prime Video is a nice bonus. But I wouldn’t pay for it as a standalone streaming service.
One genuine advantage Prime Video has: their “freevee” content and their practice of adding major theatrical releases faster than most competitors. Amazon’s willingness to spend on big-budget productions is impressive, even if the hit rate doesn’t match Apple or HBO. The upcoming slate includes several promising projects, and Amazon’s deep pockets mean they’re not going to run out of money for content anytime soon. Whether they’ll figure out how to spend it wisely is the open question.
Peacock and Paramount+: The Ones You Can Probably Skip
I’m grouping these together because they occupy a similar space: legacy media companies trying to compete with larger, better-funded platforms.
Peacock has the NBC/Universal library, which includes “The Office” (its biggest draw by far), the “Law & Order” franchise, “Yellowstone” (some seasons), and live sports including Sunday Night Football and the Premier League. If you watch a lot of NBC sports, Peacock has genuine value. Otherwise, the originals have been largely forgettable, and the library feels thin compared to the competition.
Paramount+ has some strong IP: “Yellowjackets,” “1923,” the “Star Trek” franchise, and Paramount’s movie library. But the platform has been plagued by uncertainty about its own future, with the Paramount-Skydance merger raising questions about whether Paramount+ will even exist as a standalone service in a year or two. That uncertainty makes it hard to recommend as a long-term subscription.
The Bundle Strategy That Actually Saves Money
Here’s what I’ve landed on after months of testing. Instead of subscribing to everything simultaneously, rotate your subscriptions. Keep one or two services permanently (the ones you use daily) and rotate through the others on a monthly or quarterly basis.
My permanent subscriptions: Max and one of either Netflix or the Disney+/Hulu bundle, depending on what’s releasing that quarter. Everything else I subscribe to for a month or two, watch what I want, and cancel. Most services make this easy, and there’s no penalty for resubscribing later.
Tools like JustWatch are invaluable here. You can search for any movie or show and instantly see which platforms have it. This prevents the classic mistake of subscribing to a service for one specific show only to discover it’s available somewhere you already pay for.
Another tip: check for annual plans. Several services offer significant discounts (sometimes 15-20%) if you pay for a full year upfront. This only makes sense for your permanent subscriptions, but the savings add up.
Also worth watching: the bundling trend is accelerating. Verizon, T-Mobile, and other carriers now offer streaming bundles as part of their wireless plans. The Disney+/Hulu/Max bundle launched in 2024 and represents genuine savings over subscribing separately. Charter and other cable companies are packaging streaming services with broadband. These bundles are getting complicated, but if you’re already paying for a wireless or internet plan, check whether your provider includes streaming services you don’t know about. I discovered I was paying separately for Apple TV+ when it was already included in my mobile plan.
The streaming industry is also experimenting with live content: sports, news, and events. Amazon has Thursday Night Football, Apple has Major League Soccer and Friday Night Baseball, and Peacock leans heavily on NBC Sports content. If you’re a sports fan, the streaming equation changes entirely because you need specific services for specific leagues. This fragmentation of live sports rights across platforms is arguably the most annoying aspect of the entire streaming ecosystem, and it’s only going to get worse as rights deals come up for renewal.
The Ad-Supported Tier Question
Every major service now offers a cheaper ad-supported plan, and the quality of these plans varies enormously. Netflix’s ad tier is surprisingly tolerable – the ad breaks are short and relatively infrequent. Peacock’s ad experience is also reasonable. Hulu’s ad tier, on the other hand, can feel like watching regular cable with the volume of interruptions.
The real question is whether you value your time more than the $5-10 monthly difference. If you watch 20 hours of content per month, the ad-supported tier might mean sitting through 2-3 hours of commercials. At that point, the math favors paying for ad-free unless money is genuinely tight.
One thing that bothers me about the ad tiers: you’re paying AND watching ads. This isn’t free, ad-supported TV. You’re handing over $7-10 a month and still being served commercials. The streaming services have managed to normalize something that would have seemed outrageous five years ago.
There are also privacy implications to the ad-supported tiers that most subscribers don’t consider. Ad-tier plans share your viewing data with third-party advertising networks to serve targeted commercials. This means your watching habits aren’t just being used to improve recommendations – they’re being packaged and shared with advertisers who build profiles about your interests, demographics, and behavior. For a deeper look at exactly what gets collected, read our streaming service data privacy deep dive. If that bothers you, the ad-free tier isn’t just about convenience – it’s about controlling your data.
What to Do With Your $85 a Month
If I were starting from scratch with a $40 monthly budget for streaming, here’s exactly what I’d do: Max ad-free ($16.99) as my primary service. Disney+/Hulu bundle with ads ($9.99) for breadth. Apple TV+ ($9.99) for prestige originals. That’s $36.97 and covers an enormous range of content.
Prime Video comes free if you already have Amazon Prime. Netflix and the others get rotated in one at a time when there’s something specific I want to watch. Cancel when I’m done.
The streaming market in 2025 rewards active management. The passive approach of subscribing to everything and forgetting about it is exactly what these companies are counting on. Take thirty minutes once a quarter to evaluate what you’re actually watching, and you can easily cut your streaming bill by 30-40% without missing anything you care about. If you want to put hard numbers on your entertainment spending, try running your subscriptions through an ROI calculator to see which services actually deliver value for the hours you use them.
The irony of the streaming wars is that the consumer’s best strategy looks a lot like what we used to do with cable: pick a base package, add channels when there’s something good on, and drop them when the season ends. We’ve come full circle, just with better on-demand libraries and worse interfaces.
