Quick answer: cheapest UK streaming services in 2026
- Cheapest mainstream
- £4.99
- Disney+ Standard with Ads
- Most popular
- £12.99
- Netflix Standard, no ads
- Best 4K bundle
- £8.99
- Apple TV+, all-4K catalogue
- TV Licence (live TV)
- £174.50
- per year from April 2026
UK streaming services at a glance
The eight services below cover roughly 95% of what UK households actually watch in 2026. Prices are headline rates direct from each provider, before any bundle discount through Sky, Virgin Media, EE TV or BT Broadband. Netflix and Amazon Prime Video still hold the broadest catalogues; Disney+ and Apple TV+ dominate originals; NOW and discovery+ Premium are the routes into Sky and TNT content without a long contract.
| Service | From / month | Top plan | Free trial | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Netflix | £5.99 | £18.99 (Premium, 4K, 4 screens) | No free trial | Originals, breadth of catalogue, the default if you only buy one streamer |
| Amazon Prime Video | £6.99 | £9.98 ad-free (£6.99 + £2.99) | 30-day Amazon Prime trial | Free with Prime delivery, blockbuster films, NFL Thursday games globally |
| Disney+ | £4.99 | £12.99 (Premium, 4K Dolby Vision) | No free trial | Families, Marvel and Star Wars fans, Hulu library through the Star hub |
| Apple TV+ | £8.99 | £8.99 (single tier, 4K Dolby Vision) | 7-day trial (3 months with a new Apple device) | Prestige originals, no ads ever, lowest catalogue size of the majors |
| Paramount+ | £6.99 | £10.99 (Premium, no ads, downloads) | 7-day trial | Yellowstone universe, Star Trek catalogue, MTV reality, Champions League highlights |
| NOW | £9.99 | £36 (Sky Sports Membership) | 7-day Boost trial / discounted intro offers | No-contract access to Sky originals (HBO, Atlantic) and Sky Sports |
| discovery+ Premium | £3.99 | £30.99 (Premium, with TNT Sports & Eurosport) | No free trial | TNT Sports for the Champions League, Eurosport for tennis and cycling, lifestyle reality |
| BritBox | £5.99 | £5.99 (single tier, no ads) | 7-day trial | Classic and contemporary British drama and comedy, ITV box sets |
Indicative prices in September 2026. Bundle deals through Sky Stream, Virgin Media TV, EE TV or BT Broadband may lower these rates. Free trials are subject to provider terms.
Netflix vs Amazon Prime Video: the two anchors
Netflix and Amazon Prime Video are the broadest streamers in the UK, with libraries that cross every genre and weekly originals on most days. Netflix is still the default first subscription thanks to its deeper catalogue of dramas, K-content and unscripted reality. Amazon Prime Video makes more sense if you already have Prime delivery, because the streaming service comes free with the £8.99 monthly membership.
Netflix UK plans in 2026
Netflix offers three tiers in the UK. The cheapest is Standard with Ads at £5.99 per month, with two streams in 1080p and a roughly four-minute ad load per hour. Standard at £12.99 removes ads, allows two HD streams, and lets you download to two devices. Premium at £18.99 unlocks four simultaneous streams, 4K Ultra HD, Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos on supported titles, and downloads on six devices. The Extra Member feature lets a Netflix household add an adult outside the home for £4.99 (Standard) or £5.99 (Premium) per extra member.
| Plan | Price / month | Quality | Streams | Ads |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard with Ads | £5.99 | 1080p | 2 simultaneous | ~4 min/hour |
| Standard | £12.99 | 1080p | 2 simultaneous | No ads |
| Premium | £18.99 | 4K Dolby Vision / Atmos | 4 simultaneous | No ads |
Amazon Prime Video UK plans
Amazon Prime Video changed shape in February 2024. The default is now an ad-supported feed on both the standalone Prime Video subscription and the full Prime membership. To remove ads costs £2.99 per month extra. Standalone Prime Video sits at £6.99 per month, so ad-free is £9.98 per month. Full Amazon Prime at £8.99 per month or £95 per year bundles Prime Video with one-day delivery, Prime Music, Prime Reading and Prime Gaming, which is why it remains the better deal for anyone who already orders from Amazon regularly.
Prime Video also fronts a marketplace of paid Channels, including MGM+, Paramount+, Discovery+ Premium, BFI Player and STARZPLAY. Subscribing through Channels keeps everything under one Amazon bill, but the rates are not always lower than going direct to the provider; check before committing.
Disney+ and Apple TV+: originals and family content
Disney+ UK in 2026
Disney+ has three tiers in the UK: Standard with Ads at £4.99, Standard at £8.99 and Premium at £12.99. Premium adds 4K Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos audio and downloads on up to ten devices. The catalogue covers Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic, and the Star content hub which holds adult-skewing dramas from FX, Hulu, ABC and 20th Century Studios. Star is the reason Disney+ no longer needs a separate UK launch of Hulu: shows like The Bear, Only Murders in the Building and most of FX are inside Disney+ already.
Disney+ is the best value for families. The Standard plan alone covers Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar and the entire Disney back catalogue at £8.99 per month, less than half the price of Netflix Premium. For multi-child homes the 4K Premium tier still undercuts Netflix Premium by £6 per month.
Apple TV+ UK
Apple TV+ sits at £8.99 per month on a single tier with no ads, ever. Every title streams in 4K Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos on compatible kit. The trade-off is catalogue size: Apple TV+ holds only its own originals and a handful of curated films. There is no library of licensed back-catalogue content, which means subscribers tend to dip in for a specific show (Severance, Slow Horses, Ted Lasso) rather than running it all year.
The standout deal in 2026 is the Apple One Family bundle at £19.95 per month, which adds Apple Music, Apple Arcade and 200 GB of iCloud storage on top of Apple TV+, shareable with up to five family members. If you already pay for two of those services, Apple One saves money. New Apple device purchases also unlock a three-month free trial of Apple TV+.
Anyone with kids should compare Disney+ Standard at £8.99 against the £4.99 ads tier. The full library is the same, but the no-ads experience and downloads on the higher plan are worth the £4 jump if children watch on tablets and long car journeys are common.
NOW and discovery+: routes into Sky and TNT without a contract
NOW (formerly NOW TV)
NOW is Sky's contract-free streaming service. The Entertainment Membership at £9.99 per month covers Sky Atlantic (HBO content, including House of the Dragon and The Last of Us), Sky Witness, Sky Comedy, MTV and a rolling library of Sky originals. The Cinema Membership at £11.99 per month bundles every Sky Cinema channel. The Sports Membership at £36 per month matches a Sky Sports subscription without the 18-month contract.
The main compromise on NOW is picture quality: every base membership streams at 720p with stereo audio. Full 1080p and 5.1 surround requires the Boost add-on at £6 per month, which also raises the simultaneous device limit from two to three.
discovery+ Premium
discovery+ is the Warner Bros. Discovery streamer in the UK and the home of TNT Sports (formerly BT Sport) since July 2023. The Entertainment tier at £3.99 per month covers HGTV, TLC, Discovery, Animal Planet and Food Network. The Premium tier at £30.99 per month adds every TNT Sports channel, Eurosport (tennis, cycling, Winter Olympics) and exclusive UK rights to the UEFA Champions League, Europa League and Conference League through to the end of the 2026/27 season.
If you mainly care about reality and factual, the £3.99 tier is the cheapest paid stream on the UK market. For Champions League fans the £30.99 Premium tier still works out cheaper than the old BT Sport monthly contract.
HBO Max has no UK app. The HBO library still flows through Sky and NOW in the UK; if you want House of the Dragon, The Last of Us or Succession, NOW Entertainment at £9.99 per month is the legal route. A separate HBO Max launch in the UK has been delayed multiple times and is not on the 2026 roadmap.
Specialist UK streamers worth knowing about
If the big six (Netflix, Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+, NOW and discovery+) miss your taste, three smaller services often fill the gap better than they would.
Paid niche services worth a slot
- Paramount+ (£6.99 / £10.99): home of the Yellowstone universe, Star Trek catalogue, MTV reality, Champions League highlights and CBS dramas. The Premium tier removes ads and unlocks downloads.
- BritBox (£5.99): the deepest catalogue of British drama and comedy, including the full Doctor Who archive, classic ITV box sets and recent dramas like Mr Bates vs The Post Office. Now ITV-owned solely after the BBC sold its share in 2024.
- MUBI (£11.99): a curated cinephile service rotating around 30 hand-picked films at any one time, plus a permanent library of arthouse and world cinema. Best for film buffs who would rather have a few great films than thousands of mediocre ones.
- Hayu (£4.99): unscripted reality only (Real Housewives, Below Deck, Vanderpump Rules). Lighter than Netflix unscripted but releases everything day-and-date with the US.
All four sit comfortably under the £12 mark and can be stopped and restarted any month, which suits dipping in for a specific show.
Free UK streaming services worth a slot
Three free, ad-supported services often replace a paid subscription entirely: BBC iPlayer (with a TV licence), ITVX (free with ads, £5.99 for ITVX Premium without ads) and Channel 4. Pluto TV, Tubi (since the UK launch in 2024), Freevee on Amazon and Rakuten TV AVOD are entirely free, ad-supported and need no account. See our full breakdown in the best UK free streaming guide.
Build your cheapest UK streaming stack
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Bundling streamers with broadband and TV
Paying for three or four streaming services separately gets expensive quickly. Once your monthly streaming bill clears £25, a TV-plus-broadband bundle through Sky Stream, Virgin Media, EE TV or BT Broadband usually pays back the difference and adds at least one streamer for free.
- Sky Stream: Netflix Standard is included free on most contracts; Sky Sports, Sky Cinema and discovery+ Premium can be added in one bill.
- Virgin Media Bigger / Mega Volt: bundles Netflix and Disney+ with the broadband and TV, plus optional TNT Sports.
- EE TV: includes Apple TV+ free for six months on most plans, with optional discounted Prime Video.
- BT TV (now EE TV): keeps TNT Sports bundled at a discount for existing BT Broadband customers, often the cheapest route into Champions League.
If you can stomach a longer contract, bundling is the cheapest way to assemble four or more streamers. If you prefer the freedom to cancel any month, stick with standalone subscriptions and the ad tiers.
Advantages
- Sky Stream bundles Netflix Standard free with no upfront cost
- Virgin Media Mega Volt covers Netflix, Disney+ and gigabit broadband in one bill
- EE TV adds 6 months of Apple TV+ at no charge
- One monthly bill, one remote, one app
Disadvantages
- Most bundles run for 18 to 24 months
- Bundled streamer tier may not be the top plan (Standard, not Premium)
- Early-exit fees apply if you cancel before the contract ends
- Stand-alone ad tiers are still cheaper if you only want one or two services
UK streaming services FAQ
Get the right broadband for streaming in 4K
Most 4K streams target a stable 50 Mbps connection. Two simultaneous 4K streams in different rooms need closer to 100 Mbps. If your line is below those numbers, the cheapest single change you can make before adding another subscription is to upgrade your broadband. Many full-fibre offers in 2026 land below the price of standard fibre on a copper-served line.
Selectra's UK broadband team compares Sky, BT, EE TV, Virgin Media, Vodafone and full-fibre challengers like Community Fibre, Hyperoptic and Cuckoo against your postcode, the streamers you actually use and the number of simultaneous streams in your home.
Use our free comparison tools to find the broadband bundle that fits your address and viewing habits.