- YouTube TV will cost close to $83 a month after a just-announced price hike.
- That’s a far cry from the $35 a month it was when it launched in 2017.
- However, YouTube TV is arguably still attractive relative to some other pay-TV offerings.
The price of YouTube TV is going up again — and cord-cutters around the internet are up in arms.
Google announced Thursday that the cost of its popular pay-TV service is now $82.99 a month for new users, up from $72.99. Existing users will see the price hike start on January 13, so some might not pay more until February.
The last time the service raised prices was in March 2023.
YouTube TV is now roughly in line with a typical pay-TV bundle and will cost exactly as much as rival service Hulu + Live TV, which includes ad-supported versions of Hulu, Disney+, and ESPN+.
YouTube TV’s price has grown dramatically in the nearly eight years since it launched, though that’s largely because the service was underpriced at first relative to its offering.
Before this hike, YouTube TV was generally cheaper than many rival streaming TV packages from competitors such as Hulu + Live TV, Fubo TV, Spectrum, and DirecTV. (Many pay-TV services have a variety of plans, so it can be difficult to truly compare apples to apples, however.)
YouTube TV also has a slick interface that appeals to many cord-cutters.
These factors helped YouTube TV grow to 8 million customers (as of earlier this year) and far outpace its digital rivals.
Although YouTube TV’s price growth has been eye-popping, the price of pay-TV services — from cable to satellite to streamers — has generally outpaced inflation, per data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. That includes the largest inflation surge in decades.
As the cable bundle became more expensive, millions of households cut the cord. TV networks make less money when pay-TV subscriptions fall, so to keep investors happy, they’ve increased the amount they charge TV providers, who then pass those costs on to customers.
In other words, when fewer people pay for TV, the remaining subscribers pay more. That has created a flywheel effect, with customers fleeing the bundle even faster in favor of streaming services, social media, or other forms of entertainment.
When asked for comment, a YouTube TV spokesperson issued a statement that acknowledged this dynamic: “To keep up with the rising cost of content and the investments we make in the quality of our service, we are increasing our Base Plan price for YouTube TV from $72.99/month to $82.99/month.”
Google may also have raised YouTube TV prices to help cover its investment in NFL Sunday Ticket. The tech giant won the right to distribute the premium out-of-market package starting in 2023 and priced it at $379 per season for YouTube TV customers and $479 for others. Even at those prices, media analysts at Morgan Stanley don’t think the service is profitable.
Still, despite the price increase, YouTube TV can often be one of the better deals in town for those who want a large bundle of channels. And it has another thing going for it: It’s easy to cancel and resubscribe to.
“We give all members the flexibility to cancel their membership at any time,” the YouTube TV spokesperson said in their statement.
