YouTube TV Price Hike: Everything You Need To Know About the Cheaper Bundles

You know the old phrase "I hate to say I told you so"? Yeah, that's s*%#. I love to say I told you so, and I'm saying it after YouTube TV's price hike in January 2025. And I may get to say it again in a few years because I have another moderately bold prediction at the end of this article. Mostly though, our purpose today is to grapple with YouTube TV's $82.99 monthly subscription. Let's dive into this one.

The price change for YouTube TV went from $73 a month to $83 per month in 2025. It's huge. Now, and it took effect immediately. 

I mean $83 a month? Think about it. You add that to your internet bill and you're probably sitting around $140 a month now. If you have a normal cable internet bill or whatever between $50 and $70 a month, you're probably sitting between $120 and $160 if you're subscribed to that plus YouTube TV. Congratulations. You've all just rediscovered your cable TV bundles. Here we are again, right?

Plus, you add onto that whatever on-demand services you've got—Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+—there's another $9, $10, $15 a month that you're paying for other on-demand services. And yeah, the pricing is getting a little bit out of hand because frankly live TV, it's expensive.

> Read our complete review of YouTube TV.

But there's good news: YouTube TV has just debuted new cheaper bundles in 2026 that are smaller and can be stacked together. Maybe the YouTube TV price hike has led to something good after all. 

But let's take a look now at their competitors and kind of see how YouTube TV is stacking up these days.

YouTube TV vs. Hulu Live Price: Hulu Live's pricing starts at $89 a month, and they do not have the Viacom networks that YouTube TV just added, probably because those Viacom networks are expensive. They have a lot of the most popular cable channels out there so it's an expensive package to get. That's why YouTube TV's price went up.

>> Read our complete review of Hulu + Live TV.

Now let's move to Sling TV. They are sticking with their $46 per package for the Orange or the Blue, or you can go $62 if you want to get the combo. Plus, Sling TV recently added an entry-level package, Select, for just $19.99 per month. And users can also choose to access Sling's library for 24 hours, a week, or a weekend.

The question here is whether people will be willing to forego a few channels to keep the price low. Because that's the selling point for Sling. If you don't care about Fox Sports Networks or if you don't need the ESPN stuff, then you can choose the Orange or the Blue and keep that price down. But is the price gap going to be enough to push people back to the OG live streaming service? I'm not sure, but Sling TV could possibly see a resurgence with the other services continually raising their prices because Hulu raised their prices a little while ago. Now YouTube TV has done it.

>> Read our complete review of Sling TV.

OK, you don't want to pay $82. I get it. In the nick of time (a year after its last price hike), YouTube TV just released new bite-sized YouTube TV bundles in February 2026. 

For $28 lower than the main plan, diehard movie and reality TV show fans can still watch to their heart's content. The Entertainment Plan includes all content you can find across FX, Hallmark, Comedy Central, Bravo, Paramount, Food Network, and so many more. 

New customers can snag it for $44.99 per month for the first three months. Nice!

For $11 lower than the main plan, you get everything from national news, CNBC, Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, CSPAN, Bloomberg, and Fox Business. 

New customers can get it for $56.99 per month for the first three months. Score. 

For $18 lower than the main plan, sports fans get access to all major broadcasts, plus FS1, NBC Sports Network, all of the ESPN networks, and ESPN Unlimited (coming out this fall). 

New customers can get this package for $54.99 per month for the entire first year. I think this is called a home run.

For $13 lower than the main plan, you can get the whole shebang of news, entertainment (including family content like the Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, and PBS kids), and more. 

New customers get it for $55.99 per month for the first three months. This feels doable, honestly.

If there's a way to lower your YouTube TV bill, then you should jump on it. Here are some tips and discounts:

• The Cancellation tip: I found this tip circulating on tons of online forums. Basically, when you go to "Deactivate Membership" and click "Cancel," YouTube TV will show you a "Stay with us" offer to keep your subscription for $10–$20 off per month for the next few months. Some people have still gotten this discounted price when they called in to cancel. 
• The American Express "Digital Entertainment" credit: If you have the Amex Platinum Card, you get $25 per month (up to $300 annually) in credits for YouTube TV and other services. Be aware that the credit applies directly to with YouTube and not through third-party app stores like Apple or Google Play.
• Military and Veterans discount: You can get $15 off per month for 12 months (for a total of $180 in savings).
• Internet and mobile deals: Verizon 5G Home Internet and Unlimited mobile plans offer YouTube TV for $63 per month for the first 6 months. Frontier and WOW! internet often bundles YouTube TV for a $10 to $15 monthly discount applied to your internet bill. 
• Refer-a-friend discount: If a friend signs up with your unique referral link (found under your profile icon), you both get a discount of $10 to $20 on your next bill. You can do this up to 10 times per year!
• The "Pause" tip: You can pause your YouTube TV subscription for four weeks to six months. This means you don't have to pay while you save your recordings and settings. For example, you could pause during the off-season of your favorite sport. 

So here we are, and here is my semi bold prediction. The writing is on the wall. Anybody who's been watching the industry for a while will know that this is coming. But here's the thing, we thought that streaming would be the end of traditional TV. No more cable, no more satellite, hooray. We're all free, right? We can cut the cord. Well, it turns out that in fact, it's the end of live TV as we know it, or at least as we knew it, no matter how we choose to get it, whether it's through cable or satellite, or now the internet.

It's going to take a few more years. This isn't going to happen next week, but the day is getting closer and closer when live TV will be a thing of the past except for sports. And even then, I think it will start to lose a lot of its momentum. One day, some kid is going to ask his parents what it was like to have to just wait until Thursday nights to watch their favorite show, to watch Seinfeld or whatever. "You just had to wait until every Thursday to watch your show?" It's going to be a relic of the past. The only question in my mind is whether live TV is going to have an epic meltdown and disappear overnight, or whether it will slowly and quietly fade away. Personally, my money is on fading away slowly, but I guess we'll see.

The question here is if YouTube TV is still worth it at $82 a month? My answer, nope. Okay for me, it wasn't worth it at $50, but I'm not really a live-TV watcher. But certainly at $82 a month, that is a tough pill to swallow. But maybe you are a live-TV devotee. Maybe you still watch a lot of that and maybe the awesome DVR at YouTube TV is enough to keep it going in your mind. If so, let us know!