Remember when cutting the cord was supposed to save you money? C’mon, you felt empowered when you called your digital cable company to cancel, didn’t you?
As it turns out, subscription prices are a lot higher than they were a few years ago. (The customer service person on the other end of that cancelation call is probably wishing they could call all of us back individually to say, “I told you so.”)
Americans are paying nearly 20% more for digital subscriptions than they were in 2020, according to a new analysis from DepositAccounts, a platform owned by LendingTree. Researchers looked at 15 popular services across streaming, music, gaming, productivity, and storage. The result: a slow drip of $1 and $2 increases has quietly turned into real money. On average, subscribers now pay for 4.5 services, spending about $84 per month or just over $1,000 per year.
That’s before you add “just one more.”
Disney+ and Apple TV More Than Doubled
Some of the biggest jumps hit streaming.
Disney+ now charges $18.99 per month for its ad-free tier — up 117% from 2020.
Apple TV+ isn’t far behind, with its standard plan jumping 108% over the same period when adjusted for inflation.
Other increases include:
- Xbox Game Pass Ultimate: up 60%
- The New York Times All Access: up 60%
- Hulu (no ads): up 27%
- Netflix (standard, no ads): up 11%
Not all subscription prices went up, though. Spotify Premium dipped slightly. Amazon Prime and YouTube Premium are also down modestly from 2020 when adjusted for inflation. Apple’s iCloud storage and Apple Music plans dropped even more.
But streaming now accounts for about 48% of total TV viewership, according to Nielsen. So the platforms people use most are largely the ones getting pricier.
People Are Starting to Cancel
DepositAccounts surveyed 2,000 Americans in January. One-third said they canceled at least one digital subscription in the past six months because of cost.
Online, the frustration is louder.
On one Reddit thread, a user summed it up this way: “Once the price gets too high, cancel that.”
Others have taken it further. Comments are filled with jokes about “sailing the high seas” again — shorthand for piracy — with some users claiming the quality and convenience rival (or exceed) paid platforms. Others say they’ve gone back to physical media. Blu-rays. Box sets. Even Criterion splurges.
Death by a Thousand $2 Increases
Matt Schulz, chief consumer finance analyst at LendingTree, told CBS News that the increases don’t always feel dramatic in isolation. A dollar here. Two dollars there. But when you subscribe to 10 or 15 services, that adds up quickly over a year. Especially as grocery, housing, and insurance costs climb at the same time.
There’s also growing fatigue with fragmentation. To watch everything you want, you may need five different services; add live sports or gaming, and the total climbs even faster. Some Reddit users pointed out that lumping gaming subscriptions in with TV streaming skews the numbers. Others argue the opposite — it all hits the same credit card statement.
Either way, the monthly total keeps creeping up. And the digital cable person you dumped is shaking their head. Sigh.
More from Cheapism
- Sneaky Ways Companies Make It Hard to Cancel Subscriptions (and How to Beat Them) — Companies don’t want you to remember to come back and cancel once your free trial is over. Learn to recognize the smoke and fire they create to distract and trap you.
- You Actually Don’t Need All Those Streaming Subscriptions at the Same Time — If you can’t stream everything your little heart desires all at once, we promise you’ll be okay.
- The 6 Sneakiest Subscription Charges Americans Forget to Cancel — Check your subscriptions! You might be paying for more than you realize, and if you are, you probably thought you already cancelled.
