There’s no denying Australia’s streaming market has gotten a whole lot more crowded over the years. While each streaming service isn’t that expensive individually, once you bundle up all the options, it gets pretty ridiculous. For anyone wanting a piece of all the content all the time, that’s very bad news.
There are seven primary streaming services in Australia right now: Netflix, Stan, Binge, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+ and Paramount+.
But that’s not all. In addition to all of the above, there are smaller, more niche services like Hayu, Shudder, Britbox and YouTube Premium — all of which contain unique programming as well.
In the interest of public service journalism, we decided to crunch the numbers for you in order to better understand what it’ll cost to subscribe to every streaming service in Australia. (Spoiler: It’s a lot.)
How much do the main streaming services cost in Australia?
Let’s say you want to join all the major services at the cheapest price available.
A Netflix Basic with Ads account is $6.99 per month (the Basic tier without ads has been removed for Australia), Stan and Binge start at $10, Disney+’s price is $13.99, and Amazon Prime Video is $9.99. That’s $50.97 per month. Adding in Apple TV+ for $12.99 (after the recent price increase) will bring the total up to $63.96.
So, it’s nearly $64 per month to join each service at the basic level if you want to watch content for days.
If you want to introduce Paramount+ into the fold, that’ll set you back an additional $9.99 each month. This brings the grand total to $73.95 – yikes.
Those basic subscriptions on Stan, Binge and Netflix, however, only let you use a single screen at once, and a few of them don’t even come with basic HD, which is a pretty average offering. It also means you’ll be dealing with ads on Netflix. You’ll likely want to upgrade.
Bumping up Netflix, Binge and Stan to the mid-tier level offering ($16.99, $16 and $18, respectively) will bring you to $97.95.
And if you want all the bells and whistles?
For the sake of this example, let’s take a look at the premium subscriptions for every one of the main services. What would that cost?
Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Apple TV and Paramount+ remain the same. Netflix jumps to $22.99 (and don’t forget you’ll have to pay more if you want to share your account with others), Binge moves to $22 and Stan increases to $21 per month. If you’d like Stan Sport too, that’s another $15.
That, including all other streaming services mentioned above, leaves us at $127.95 every month.
You can shave off a couple of dollars (literally $2.32 per month) by signing up for Disney+ at an annual rate of $139.99. Prime Video also offers an annual subscription price of $79 a year (which saves $40.88 over a year) and Paramount+’s annual price of $89.99 saves you $29.89 a year.
Adding to this bundle again is the option to sign up for Prime Video Channels on Amazon Prime, which gives you 12 optional channels, all with additional costs.
Prime Video Channels includes Paramount+($8.99/month), hayu ($6.99/month), Britbox ($8.99/month), Rialto ($3.99/month), Acorn TV ($6.99/month), Shudder ($6.99/month), OUTtv ($3.99/month), DocPlay ($7.99/month) and more.
All the above totals out at $54.92. But there are double-ups between some of the Prime Video Channels and popular streaming services we’ve already included in this list, like Paramount+. So, for the sake of simplicity, we’ve taken those out of the sum here.
How much do the other streaming services cost?
That’s just the major streaming options.
Hayu is $6.99, Shudder is $6.99 per month, Crunchyroll starts at $10.99 (up to $13.99) and YouTube Premium is $13.99.
Getting even more niche, there’s also Acorn TV at $6.99, DocPlay at $7.99, iwonder at $6.99 and British comedy and drama streaming service BritBox is $8.99 per month.
Let’s say you want a dosage of reality TV with Hayu, some horror titles with Shudder, anime favourites on Crunchyroll, British television on Acorn TV and Britbox, YouTube’s best offerings with Premium and you choose one of the documentary services, DocPlay. You’ll basically be securing yourself access to a whole lot more than you could ever possibly chew on.
All of that costs $62.93.
Let’s add that to our exorbitant figure ($127.95), and you’ll have yourself a monthly bill of $190.88. Tack on a Foxtel subscription with bundles ranging from $72 to $140 per month and you’re looking at anywhere between $262.88 and $330 per month. (If our brains haven’t exploded from the math at this point).
Feels reminiscent of the days of cable television, and then some, doesn’t it?
There are others not included in this list because there is simply too much to take into account these days. Various sports subscriptions will also jack up the price, as a start. The point is there’s a lot out there, and that figure will only rise as more options are introduced into Australia.
We’re getting more content than ever before, but as we start reaching similar costs to cable TV prices, have we lost the point of introducing affordable streaming in the first place? Share your thoughts in the comments.
This article has been updated with the latest round of streaming services to be introduced in Australia.
Lead Image Credit: Netflix/Stan/Prime Video/Binge
Comments
14 responses to “Signing Up for Every Streaming Service in Australia Costs More Than You Think”
And that’s on top of all the other streaming/subscription services for music, podcasts, books, food, loot crates, etc. etc.
May as well just stream my income directly to them all.
It actually gets worse because that’s just entertainment streaming. Also may have subscription to consoles like PS Plus, Xbox, Nintendo Switch. EA now has subscription. Then utilities like Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft 365, Adobe. Then other subscriptions such as physical ones for example the GYM and others. Even the subscriptions you have forgotten about. Everyone is doing the subscription thing and think if people were to see all there subscriptions on one page, be in a world of shock. In saying that, will be adding Disney+ haha.
… most of those are multi-nationals that offshore credit card charge for services, pay only GST, and tax haven all the profit. So that’s money not even in circulation in Australia’s economy.
Fixed.
And just like that piracy rates doubled again!
The companies seriously need to stop and think about what people want and are willing (and able) to spend on it. Netflix was a great deal when it had (almost) all the content. But if it’s only say 50% of the content the price needs to reflect that. Same with the other streaming companies. If the Disney one was less than $5 a month *maybe* it’d be ok. But $9 a month is too much. Same with the others.
Similarly, Foxtel needs to stop gating some of their content behind extra purchases. If I just want say sport then why can’t I *just* buy sport? Why do I need to buy a basic pack then add it on? Either that or the basic pack needs to drop to practically nothing.
Just letting you know that if you only want the sport – you can have only the sport – It’s called Kayo.
Thanks for that. Pity its $25 a month ($35 for premium). I assume (from the sparse information on their site) that premium just ads an extra screen? They’re not gating content?
“Hayu is $6.99, 10 All Access is $9.99 per month and YouTube Premium is $14.99. In total, those three options amount to $56.97.”
How on earth do the three come to $56.97?
Hayu $6.99
YouTube Premium $14.99
10 All Access $9.99
TOTAL $31.97
So where does the other $25 go???
And wouldn’t that affect your claimed total for all of $219.93, making it $194.93? You better change your headline.
Hi, thanks for pointing that out. We originally had Kayo’s basic package in there but made an editorial decision to exclude it seeing as the Foxtel package comes with sports. We have updated the figures to reflect the cost.
Oh what “First-World Problems”! – Seriously guys, you’ve all sounding like a bunch of entitled pricks. If you really don’t want to miss out on every single piece of content, then sure, got and subscribe to them all. For the rest of us that don’t need to be subscribed to every piece of entertainment under the sun, we’ll just pick and choose what we want and when we can afford it. To be completely fair on the studios, they have brought us exactly what we wanted, direct and accessible access to the content on whatever device we like, when we want it, and in reasonable quality as well. To assume that they would give up their advantage by sharing out their content is stupid as a business model, and without them bringing ads back into the mix (which we don’t want), then the subscription model is the best thing going at this point. How about we all just be a little bit grateful that we can now stream most content that we used to have to either legally buy on DVD or Bluray or otherwise painstakingly pirate, and for very little effort on our part. /endrant
You completely miss the problem. It’s not possible to watch the content that people want all in one place, or even two or three anymore. They’re making it necessary to pay more for what we essentially got from one or two providers in the past.
This is about users getting screwed by corporations who just care about profit.
I used to subscribe to Netflix until I realized I was watching Youtube more, so I cancelled the Netflix and subscribed to youtube.
I also play WoW and subscribe to Office 365.
I used to subscribe to Stan until I got sick of The Flash.
A consideration is the time you spend in an evening, you can’t watch everything.
Now make an article comparing all of the above mentioned streaming services as some of them I have never heard of or know what is good in them.
For me personally I have no clue what Amazon Prime Video, Hayu, Kayo or Disney Plus would contain.
I guess we are not gonna include crunchy roll or international streaming options into this like TFC or Flip TV’s offerings to name a few.
Great article though.
I dipped my toes in with Netflix a few years ago.
Have gotten value out of it but considering Amazon and Hayu because they look so cheap.
Thanks again for the article.
Amazon Prime is worth it if you buy things on Amazon, particularly stock held in the US, as Primes gives free postage on some items, with conditions of course, but the minimum spend is not bad, and a couple of US or even local purchases a year would soon put you in front. But on its own? Check it out.first, as it may not suit everyone. It also gives access to music (IMHO its not up to much) and games.
If you are prepared to wait for content, just subscribe to each supplier round-robin one month at a time, checking out near the end of the month which supplier has the most suitable content for the next month.
Each supplier just doesn’t have the range of content now to have more than one per month. We used to have Netflix all the time and do Stan or Prime for a month every so often. However, Netflix has lost a lot of programming so they are not likely to be the full-time supplier for us ongoing.
A good thing about Stan has been that if you hadn’t subscribed to them for a few months, your id dropped off their system, so you could do the free month again.
You missed Crunchyroll and Animelab 😉
I don’t panic over this stuff. Keep an eye on what’s on each service semi-regularly, pay for a month here and there which is generally long enough for me to watch something if I really want to. The only subscription I keep running month to month is my Netflix account, and mostly because that is shared between a couple people. It really doesn’t have to cost a lot. I figure it costs me more to go out to the movies than it does to pay for a years worth of sub fees.
I subscribe to Amazon because I want it for the delivery.
Other than that I just sign up to a free month of Stan or Netflix when there is something I absolutely can’t miss.
I’m definitely interested in Disney+ if I can get it fairly cheap though.