Netflix’s cheapest UK plan now costs £7.99 a month, up from £5.99 — a third more — and Disney+ moved to £6.99, £11.99 and £15.99 on 14 October 2026. Existing Disney+ monthly subscribers are reported to move to the new prices from 18 November. A typical ad-free stack of Netflix Standard, Disney+ Standard and Apple TV now costs £35.97 a month, or £431.64 a year. Watch them one at a time, four months each, and the same year costs £143.88.
This is a news piece with a calculator attached. Below: what changed and when, a table of what each service charges today as checked on its own UK site on 19 October 2026, the arithmetic of a three-service stack, the rotate-don’t-stack method, when an annual plan is worth it, ad tiers, bundles through Sky, Virgin Media and the mobile networks, sharing rules, how to cancel properly, and the TV Licence point people miss.
What went up, and when
Netflix: September 2026
Netflix’s latest UK rise was first reported on 4 September 2026, by ISPreview (press report). New members paid the new prices straight away; existing members, according to press reports, get a month’s notice by email and move across on a billing date after that. Netflix’s own UK plans and pricing page now lists three plans: Standard with adverts at £7.99 a month, Standard at £13.99 and Premium at £20.99. The old Basic plan has been discontinued.
Free download
The UK Savings Pot Tracker spreadsheet
Track every pot, rate and goal in one place. Enter your email and it is yours instantly, plus an occasional email when a money change affects you. Unsubscribe any time.
The rise is not even. Standard with adverts went from £5.99 to £7.99, which is £2 or 33.4 per cent. Standard went up £1, or 7.7 per cent, and Premium £2, or 10.5 per cent. The ad tier, sold as the cheap way in, took the biggest percentage hit. That changes the maths for anyone who chose it to save money: the gap between ads and no ads has narrowed from £7 a month to £6.
Disney+: 14 October 2026
Disney+ is the more recent move. Its UK sign-up page now shows Standard with Ads at £6.99 a month, Standard at £11.99 and Premium at £15.99, with annual plans at £119.90 for Standard and £159.90 for Premium. No annual price is listed for Standard with Ads. New customers have paid these prices since 14 October 2026.
Existing subscribers move later. According to What Hi-Fi (press report, 14 October), monthly subscribers move to the new prices from 18 November 2026 and annual subscribers from 2 December 2026, or at renewal if later. The old monthly prices, as reported, were £5.99, £9.99 and £14.99 — the same figures Vodafone’s April 2026 entertainment terms give for Disney+ — so Standard went up £2 a month, or 20.0 per cent, while Standard with Ads and Premium each rose £1. We could not find the dates for existing customers on a Disney+ UK page, so treat them as reported rather than confirmed. Check any email from Disney+ for the date that applies to you, and go by that.
That gives you a window. If you are on monthly Disney+ and were thinking of leaving, the reported timing gives you until your first bill on or after 18 November before the higher price lands. Cancelling takes effect at the end of the period you have paid for, so cancel now and you keep watching until then.
What streaming costs in the UK now
Each price below was checked on the provider’s own UK page on 19 October 2026. We have left out services we could not confirm that way. Amazon Prime and Prime Video, NOW, YouTube Premium and discovery+ are missing for that reason, not because they are cheap or expensive: check amazon.co.uk, nowtv.com and youtube.com/premium yourself before you budget for them. Paramount+ appears in the bundles section, from Three’s customer notice.
| Service | Cheapest with ads (a month) | Cheapest ad-free (a month) | Top tier (a month) | Annual option |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Netflix | £7.99 | £13.99 (Standard) | £20.99 (Premium) | None listed |
| Disney+ | £6.99 | £11.99 (Standard) | £15.99 (Premium) | £119.90 Standard; £159.90 Premium |
| Apple TV | No ad tier | £9.99 | £9.99 | None listed |
| Spotify Premium | Free tier with ads | £12.99 (Individual) | £21.99 (Family, up to 6) | None listed |
| Apple One | No ad tier | £18.95 (Individual) | £36.95 (Premier) | None listed |
Apple TV, which Apple no longer calls Apple TV+, is £9.99 a month after a seven-day free trial for new subscribers. Spotify is a music service, not video, but it sits in most people’s subscription list: Premium Individual is £12.99 a month, Duo £17.99, Family £21.99 and Student £5.99. Apple One bundles Apple TV, Apple Music, Apple Arcade and iCloud+ storage from £18.95 a month for Individual and £24.95 for Family.
The rise in one picture
The chart compares the old and new monthly price of every Netflix and Disney+ plan. The orange bar is what new customers pay now. The blue bar is the previous price, as reported in the press, which most existing subscribers were paying until this autumn.
What a three-service stack costs a year
Take a common ad-free stack: Netflix Standard at £13.99, Disney+ Standard at £11.99 and Apple TV at £9.99. That is £35.97 a month. Multiply by 12 and it is £431.64 a year.
Before this autumn the same three cost £12.99, £9.99 and £9.99, which is £32.97 a month and £395.64 a year. The rises add £3.00 a month, or £36.00 a year, to this one stack. Put your own list into our budget planner and see the annual figure next to your other bills.
Rotate, don’t stack
Very few people watch three services at once. Most watch one show at a time. So pay for one service at a time.
Run the same three services in rotation for four months each: Netflix for January to April, Disney+ for May to August, Apple TV for September to December. That is 4 × £13.99 = £55.96, plus 4 × £11.99 = £47.96, plus 4 × £9.99 = £39.96. Total £143.88 for the year, against £431.64 for keeping all three running. The saving is £287.76, and you have still had access to every service for a third of the year.
- Cancel the day you subscribe. Netflix, Disney+ and Google Play all say you keep access until the end of the period you have paid for, so cancelling straight away costs nothing and stops the auto-renewal you would otherwise forget.
- Avoid Disney+’s 6-month saver plans if you rotate. They are cheaper per month, but the page states a 6-month minimum term, which defeats the point.
- Rotation works best on monthly billing through the service itself. Bundled or network-billed subscriptions are harder to pause and restart.
Annual plans: the 10-month test
Disney+ is the only one of the video services above that lists an annual plan. The test is simple: divide the annual price by the monthly price to see how many months you would need to keep it before the annual plan wins.
Disney+ Standard: £119.90 ÷ £11.99 = 10.0 months. Twelve months at the monthly price would be £143.88, so the annual plan saves £23.98 — but only if you would have kept it for more than ten months anyway. Disney+ Premium: £159.90 ÷ £15.99 = 10.0 months again. Twelve months monthly would be £191.88, so annual saves £31.98.
If you rotate, the annual plan loses. You would pay £119.90 for a service you watch for four months, when four months monthly is £47.96. Annual plans reward people who never cancel, which is the behaviour this article is trying to break.
The 6-month saver plans sit in the middle. Disney+ shows Standard at £9.99 a month for six months, which is £59.94 against £71.94 at the full monthly price, and Premium at £11.99 a month, which is £71.94 against £95.94. After six months, the page says the then-current monthly price applies. If you know you want six months, that is a genuine saving of £12.00 or £24.00.
Count the direct debits before the next rise counts them for you.
List every streaming service you pay for, the date it renews and what you actually watched last month — then keep one and cancel the rest.
Explore GetSmartSaver →Ad tiers: smaller saving than it was
Moving all three video services to their cheapest option is the other lever. Netflix Standard with adverts at £7.99 plus Disney+ Standard with Ads at £6.99 plus Apple TV at £9.99, which has no ad tier, comes to £24.97 a month, or £299.64 a year. That is £11.00 a month, or £132.00 a year, less than the ad-free stack.
The trade-off is worse than it was. Netflix’s ad tier rose by a third, so its discount on Standard is now £6 a month rather than £7. Disney+ is the reverse: its ad-free Standard rose £2 and the ad tier £1, so the gap widened from £4 to £5. Disney’s page also notes that all its plans include Disney promotions and sponsorship, and may include ads around some live content, so ad-free is not entirely ad-free. Rotation saves more than ad tiers, and you can do both.
Bundles: Sky, Virgin Media and the mobile networks
A bundle is cheaper only if you would have paid for both parts anyway. Check that first, and check the contract length, because most of these tie the streaming service to a 24-month TV, broadband or phone deal.
Sky and Virgin Media
Sky says Netflix Standard with Ads is included with Sky Essential TV and Ultimate TV. For new customers on a 24-month term, Essential TV is listed at £15 a month, or £18 on a 31-day rolling contract, which Sky says then renews at its standard rolling price, currently £21; Ultimate TV is £24 a month on 24 months. Sky adds that prices may change during the minimum term.
Virgin Media includes Netflix Standard with adverts in some bundles at no extra cost, naming its Cinema, Sports and Max Volt deals, and some broadband-only deals depending on the speed chosen. Under the heading “Upgrade to go ad-free or watch in 4K Ultra HD”, the same page lists Netflix Standard at £6 a month and Premium at £13 a month. Those are upgrade charges on top of a Virgin bundle that already includes the ad plan, not standalone prices, so they are not directly comparable with Netflix’s own £13.99 and £20.99. Check exactly which Netflix plan your package already includes before you pay to upgrade.
EE, O2, Vodafone and Three
The networks use streaming to sell longer contracts. EE’s Inclusive Extras let you pick one extra on its All Rounder and Full Works plans and swap it every 30 days. All Rounder options include Netflix Standard with adverts and Apple TV; Full Works options include Netflix Premium and TNT Sports. EE’s page values Netflix Standard with adverts at £4.99 a month and Netflix Premium at £18.99. Netflix itself now charges £7.99 and £20.99. EE’s “worth” figures had not caught up when we checked, which is a reminder that a network’s value claim is marketing, not a price.
O2’s Extras include Disney+ Standard for 3 months on Classic plans and 6 months on Plus; Disney+ Premium and Amazon Prime are included for the length of the contract on Ultimate. Vodafone’s entertainment terms dated April 2026 say its Entertainment plans include one subscription, such as Disney+ Standard or Prime, for the plan’s minimum period, after which it renews at a monthly charge unless you cancel. Those terms put the Disney+ Standard renewal at £9.99 a month, its price before 14 October; Disney+ now charges £11.99 direct, so check what Vodafone will charge before your included period ends.
Three has told customers that Paramount+ rose from £7.99 to £9.99 a month on 27 August 2026. Customers with Paramount+ included keep it at no extra cost until the inclusive period ends, and Three texts them before that happens. When an included period ends, the subscription can carry on at full price. Put the end date in your calendar the day you sign up. And remember the bundle sits inside a phone contract that has its own annual increase, covered in our guide to mid-contract mobile price rises.
Tesco Clubcard and student prices
Tesco Clubcard Reward Partners lets you swap vouchers for Disney+. Tesco’s Clubcard pages, checked on 19 October 2026, list three months of Standard with Ads for £10.50 of vouchers and three months of Standard for £18. At the new cash prices those three months would cost £20.97 and £35.97. The vouchers are real money you could spend on shopping, so this is not free streaming, but it is a good-value use of them.
For students, Spotify Premium Student is £5.99 a month against £12.99, for students at an eligible accredited higher education institution. The Netflix and Disney+ UK plan pages we checked list no student price.
Our streaming subscription deals page collects current offers in one place; check the provider’s own terms before you sign up.
Sharing: what Netflix allows
Netflix says you may not share your account outside your household, which it defines by the devices connected at the main place you watch. The legal way to add someone who lives elsewhere is an extra member. On the UK pricing page, a Standard plan can add one extra member at £5.99 a month with adverts or £6.99 without; Premium can add up to two at the same prices each. Extra members are not available on the Standard with adverts plan itself, on some packages that include Netflix, or on accounts billed through a third party.
The arithmetic: a Standard plan plus one ad-free extra member is £13.99 + £6.99 = £20.98 a month, against £27.98 for two separate Standard accounts. Split it fairly and both of you pay £10.49.
How to cancel properly
Deleting the app does not cancel anything. Where you cancel depends on who bills you.
- Billed by the service directly. Cancel in your account on its website. Netflix says its Manage membership page is the only way to cancel; you keep access until the end of the billing period.
- Billed through Apple. Settings, your name, Subscriptions on an iPhone or iPad, or account.apple.com on the web. Apple advises cancelling a free trial at least 24 hours before it ends.
- Billed through Google Play. Cancel in Play Store subscriptions. Google says uninstalling the app does not cancel the subscription.
- Billed through Sky, Virgin Media or your network. Cancel with them. The streaming service cannot do it for you, and removing it may change your bundle price.
Then check the next statement. The new subscription-contract rules in the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 are designed to make leaving easier and to require reminders before free trials roll over; our explainer on the new subscription rules sets out what is in force today and what is still to come. Do not wait for them.
The TV Licence point
Streaming does not get you out of the licence fee if you watch live. TV Licensing says you need to be covered to watch TV channels live on any TV service or streaming service, and to watch or download anything on BBC iPlayer, live or on demand. You do not need one if you only ever watch on-demand programmes on services other than BBC iPlayer. If a streaming app shows something live, as it is broadcast, the licence rules apply to it.
The colour licence rose to £180 on 1 April 2026, and £60.50 for black and white. If you still watch live TV or iPlayer, £180 belongs in your streaming budget. Our guide to the TV Licence cost and exemptions covers who pays less or nothing.
These prices are UK-wide. Netflix, Disney+, Apple and Spotify charge the same in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the TV Licence rules and fee are the same across the UK.
Frequently asked questions
How much is Netflix in the UK now?
Netflix’s UK pricing page lists Standard with adverts at £7.99 a month, Standard at £13.99 and Premium at £20.99. The rise was reported on 4 September 2026; according to press reports, existing members move to the new price on a billing date after a month’s email notice. The cheapest plan went up by £2, or 33.4 per cent. Extra members cost £5.99 with adverts or £6.99 without.
When does the Disney+ price rise hit existing subscribers?
New customers have paid £6.99, £11.99 and £15.99 a month since 14 October 2026. Existing monthly subscribers move to the new prices from 18 November 2026 and annual subscribers from 2 December 2026, according to press reports; we could not confirm these dates on a Disney+ page. Check any email from Disney+ for the date that applies to you. You can cancel before the higher price applies.
Is the Disney+ annual plan worth it?
Only if you would keep Disney+ for more than ten months. Standard annual is £119.90, equal to exactly ten months at £11.99, and saves £23.98 on a full year. Premium annual is £159.90, also ten months at £15.99, and saves £31.98. If you rotate services and only watch for four months, paying monthly costs £47.96 and the annual plan is a loss.
How much can I save by rotating streaming services?
Keeping Netflix Standard, Disney+ Standard and Apple TV all year costs £431.64 at current prices. Taking each for four months in turn costs £143.88, a saving of £287.76. Cancel as soon as you subscribe: you keep access until the paid period ends, and the subscription will not roll over without you noticing. Avoid minimum-term saver plans if you plan to rotate.
Do I need a TV Licence if I only use Netflix and Disney+?
Not if you only watch on-demand programmes. TV Licensing says you need a licence to watch live TV on any channel or streaming service, and for anything on BBC iPlayer, live or on demand. Watching only on-demand content on services other than iPlayer does not need one. The colour licence has cost £180 a year since 1 April 2026.
How do I cancel a streaming subscription paid through the App Store?
Cancel with Apple, not the streaming service. On an iPhone or iPad go to Settings, tap your name, then Subscriptions, choose the service and tap Cancel Subscription, or use account.apple.com on the web. Apple advises cancelling a trial at least 24 hours before it ends. For Google Play, cancel in Play Store subscriptions; uninstalling the app does not cancel it.
Last reviewed: October 2026. Prices were checked on 19 October 2026 on each provider’s own UK page: Netflix, Disney+, Apple, Spotify, Sky, Virgin Media, EE, O2, Three, Vodafone, Tesco Clubcard and TV Licensing. Previous Netflix and Disney+ prices, and the dates existing Netflix and Disney+ subscribers move, are as reported in the press (ISPreview, What Hi-Fi, T3, Express & Star); the previous Disney+ prices also appear in Vodafone’s April 2026 entertainment terms. We could not confirm the existing-subscriber dates on Disney’s own pages. Amazon Prime Video, NOW, YouTube Premium and discovery+ are not listed because we could not confirm their current prices on their own sites. Streaming prices change often and without much notice, so check the provider before you subscribe. Prices and the TV Licence rules apply UK-wide. Worked examples are our own calculations on the stated prices. This article is general information, not personal financial advice — check your own position with gov.uk or the relevant body, or get free help from MoneyHelper or Citizens Advice.
