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 Standard
The plans page on hbomax.com — read on 26 August 2026.
$184.99 a year · list price
Also sold at $18.49/mo — $221.88 a year if you keep it for twelve months.
Not published renewal price
- Billed
- $184.99/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 ad-free middle tier from HBO Max: $184.99 a year or $18.49 a month. Twelve monthly payments total $221.88, so the year up front saves $36.89, or about 17%.
The comparison that makes this record worth reading: Netflix Standard, the closest equivalent product on the ledger, costs $239.88 over the same twelve months and offers no way to pay less. Same shape of subscription, $54.89 apart, entirely because one company sells a year and the other does not.
No free tier, and no stated renewal price. The annual plan auto-renews; what it auto-renews at is not something the plans page commits to, which is why the renewal column here is empty rather than confident.
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.