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.
Paramount+ Essential
The plan copy on paramountplus.com, which reads "Plans start at $8.99/month" — read on 26 August 2026.
$8.99 a month · list price
Not published renewal price
- Billed
- $8.99/mo — $107.88 a year
- Renews at
- Not published
- Free tier
- None.
- Price read from
- The plan copy on paramountplus.com, which reads "Plans start at $8.99/month"
- Checked
- Vendor
- paramountplus.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.
Paramount+ puts one number on its front page — “Plans start at $8.99/month” — and that number is this tier. It rose from $7.99 on 15 January 2026.
The annual prepay is the part the page does not show. Paramount+ sells a discounted year, and that annual figure moved in the same January change, but we could not read it on a Paramount page on 26 August 2026, so it is not printed here.
The gap matters on this service more than on most, because the discount for prepaying has been unusually deep. Treat the monthly figure above as the ceiling on a year of Paramount+ rather than the representative price, and check the number on the sign-up screen before you commit to twelve of them.
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.