- The Apple TV+ price hike does not apply to the service’s annual rate
- The cost of bundle services like Apple One will remain unchanged
- New and select returning subscribers can still get a 7-day free trial
Apple TV+’s sudden price hike has left subscribers scrambling to decide whether to cancel their subscription before the increased rate shows up in their next renewal bill, but there are some ways to avoid paying as much as 30% more.
The best I’ve seen so far is to sign up for an annual subscription, as the 12-month rate remains unchanged for the moment. That means you can not only still get a more than 16% saving on the old monthly cost of Apple TV+ by buying an annual subscription, but you can also save 55% on the newly raised monthly price.
By signing up for 12 months upfront, you can bring the cost of a monthly subscription down to just $8.33 in the US, £7.49 in the UK, and AU$10.83 in Australia (see the table below for how these stack up against the new raised prices).
| Header Cell – Column 0 |
Annual |
Monthly equivalent |
New monthly prices |
|---|---|---|---|
|
US |
$99 |
$8.33 |
$12.99 |
|
UK |
£89.99 |
£7.49 |
£9.99 |
|
AU |
AU$129.99 |
AU$10.83 |
AU$15.99 |
Apple also has not announced any further changes to the price of other bundles and offers, which means the cost of its mega subscription service that bundles all of its services, including Apple Music, Apple Arcade, iCloud+, Apple TV+, and more, into one package remains unchanged.
The Apple One subscription bundle has three different pricing tiers depending on whether you want an individual account, family, or more premium features like a higher storage capacity on iCloud, making it a great value for anyone who regularly uses these services. It starts at $19.95 a month in the US, £18.95 per month in the UK, and AU$21.95 per month in Australia.
If you haven’t already read our Apple TV+ cost guide, then you might not know that you can also still get a free trial of Apple’s streaming service. The introductory offer is available for new and select returning customers, making it a great option if you’re a savvy budgeter who hops between subscriptions.
An Apple TV+ free trial is by far the cheapest option to avoid the price hike, and there are multiple ways to get one. The standard trial period is seven days, but you can get a month if you’re a student or a new Apple One subscriber – or three months with an Apple device purchase. In the US, you can also get three months if you purchase a Roku device, or six months if you’re on a T-Mobile Go5G plan. There are similar offers in the UK too, with EE iPhone contracts and Three bundles.
These are the best ways to avoid missing out on streaming Spike Lee’s new movie Highest 2 Lowest, alongside the return of The Morning Show season 4 and Slow Horses season 5 in September. Of course, it’s always worth keeping an eye on the best streaming deals, but Apple TV+ isn’t known to offer many discounts throughout the year.
Will Apple TV+ introduce an ad-supported tier?
If you’re like me and signed up to the rare Apple TV+ deal that marked a 70% saving on the usual price of a subscription in April, then your discounted account has probably run out by now – great timing, I know.
There are thankfully ways to save money on an Apple TV+ subscription (as listed above), but for anyone who’s looking for a more long-term solution that doesn’t involve swapping and changing which of the best streaming services you’re signed up to each month, then one could be on the horizon.
Reports have been circling for over a year now that Apple TV+ has been making inroads in the advertising space. From recruiting ad execs to testing ad tools, industry insiders have connected these dots and believe they suggest that Apple TV+ could be next to get an ad-based tier.
That’s not too surprising considering the success that Netflix, Disney+, and Prime Video have had following the rollout of similar ad-supported tiers, with the services each announcing an increase in sign-ups off the back of the launch of these new, cheaper tiers.
With Apple increasingly spending more on big-ticket productions and acquiring the expensive rights to big sporting tournaments – namely the Formula 1 rights in the US – it’s bound to have an impact on the bottom line, and that means we’ll have to cough up for it.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we start to hear more about a potential ad-supported tier rolling out on Apple TV+ off the back of the price hike, especially if it impacts subscriber numbers, as Apple’s streaming service will undoubtedly want to win back eyeballs.