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What an hour of streaming costs you
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The monthly price of a plan says little on its own. Divided by the hours you watch, it shows which subscriptions you use enough to justify.
What does an hour of viewing cost you?
Netflix Standard at 20 hours a month
$1 an hour
| Monthly price | $19.99 |
| Hours a year | 240 |
| Cost of a year | $239.88 |
The cost per hour of a streaming plan is its monthly price divided by the hours you watch in a month. Netflix Standard at $19.99 costs $1 an hour for someone who watches 20 hours a month, and $5 an hour for someone who watches four. The same arithmetic applies to every plan, which is why a cheap service you never open costs more per hour than an expensive one you use every night. The calculator takes any plan sold today at the price on the service's US page, read on November 1, 2026, and your own monthly hours. It gives the cost per hour, the hours in a year and the cost of a year. The number of hours is yours to estimate; services show viewing history in their apps but publish no average. Prices before sales tax.
What does going ad-free cost?
HBO Max: Standard over Basic with Ads
+$90 a year
| Basic with Ads | $10.99 a month |
| Standard | $18.49 a month |
| Extra per month | $7.50 |
| Extra in share | 68% |
Prices read on Nov 1, 2026.
Prices read by Radif Partners · Editorial policy · Method and sources
Examples with current prices
| Plan | Monthly | 5 h a month | 20 h a month | 60 h a month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Netflix, Standard with ads | $8.99 | $1.80 | $0.45 | $0.15 |
| Netflix, Premium | $26.99 | $5.40 | $1.35 | $0.45 |
| Disney+, Disney+ (with ads) | $12.49 | $2.50 | $0.62 | $0.21 |
| HBO Max, Standard | $18.49 | $3.70 | $0.92 | $0.31 |
| Peacock, Premium (with ads) | $12.99 | $2.60 | $0.65 | $0.22 |
| Apple TV, Apple TV (no ads) | $14.99 | $3 | $0.75 | $0.25 |
| YouTube TV, YouTube TV (main plan, 100+ channels) | $82.99 | $16.60 | $4.15 | $1.38 |
What the number tells you
A per-hour price is a way to rank your own services, not a verdict on a service. It makes two things visible. First, the subscriptions you keep "just in case" are the most expensive per hour, and are the first candidates for rotation. Second, the gap between an ad plan and an ad-free plan shrinks per hour as viewing grows: at 60 hours a month, the $11 gap between Netflix Standard and Standard with ads is $0.18 an hour.
What does going ad-free cost?
HBO Max: Standard over Basic with Ads
+$90 a year
| Basic with Ads | $10.99 a month |
| Standard | $18.49 a month |
| Extra per month | $7.50 |
| Extra in share | 68% |
Prices read on Nov 1, 2026.
Live TV
Live TV services are priced for heavy use. YouTube TV at $82.99 a month costs $1.38 an hour at 60 hours, about two hours a day for a household. Compared with on-demand plans, the price per hour only comes down with that kind of use.