What streaming costs a year in 2026
Every major service, its ad tier, its ad-free tier, the annual option where one exists, and what it renews at. Prices read from the vendors' own pages on 22 August 2026.
HBO Max Premium
The plans page on hbomax.com — read on 26 August 2026.
$229.99 a year · list price
Also sold at $22.99/mo — $275.88 a year if you keep it for twelve months.
Not published renewal price
- Billed
- $229.99/yr
- Renews at
- Not published
- Free tier
- None.
- Price read from
- The plans page on hbomax.com
- Checked
- Vendor
- hbomax.com
“Not published” means we did not find a renewal price stated by the vendor on the date we checked. It is not a claim that the price changes on renewal, and it is not a claim that it doesn’t.
The top tier from HBO Max: $229.99 a year or $22.99 a month. Twelve monthly payments come to $275.88, so paying the year up front saves $45.89 — the biggest absolute discount for prepaying anywhere on this ledger, and the clearest illustration of why the annual figure is the one worth quoting.
What the money buys over the Standard tier is 4K and four concurrent streams. What it does not buy is a different library.
At $229.99 this is the most expensive published annual price for a single service on this ledger. It is worth sitting next to the fact that the Disney+, Hulu and HBO Max bundle with ads runs $239.88 over the same twelve months and covers three catalogues instead of one.
Where we have written about this
This is a price record, not a review. We do not rate the product, we track what it charges. The method is on how we check prices; mistakes end up in the corrections log.