The streaming industry is in its "nothing stays still" era.Catalogs continuously rotate, bundles get reshuffled and dropped, services rebrand, merge, and corporate consolidation keeps rewriting the map.The latest whiplash example is Paramount Skydance’s victory over Netflix to buy Warner Bros.
Discovery, a reminder that the industry is still very volatile and that these corporate wars often come with a higher monthly bill for us.2026 may still be in its infancy, but we’ve already been tracking the handful of video and audio streaming services that have bumped their prices this year—including a few that announced them late last year.Here’s the breakdown of every major service that has increased its rates so far.
Paramount+ If you’re a fan of Taylor Sheridan, then you’re probably a Paramount+ subscriber.It’s the streaming home of Paramount’s roster of content from Paramount Pictures, CBS, Nickelodeon, BET, Comedy Central, Showtime, and more, as well as the NFL on CBS.Flagship series not only include all things and , but Sheridan’s massive hits like the universe, , and also live here, making it a big draw.
The service offers two tiers of service, the ad-supported Essential plan and the ad-free Premium plan, which includes access to Showtime.In November 2025, Paramount+ announced a price increase, which too effect on January 15, 2026.Here’s how it breaks down.
Paramount+ Plan Old Price New Price Increase Essential (with ads) $8/mo.($60/yr.) $9/mo.($90/yr.) $1/mo.
Premium (ad-free) $13/mo.($120/yr.) $14/mo.($140/yr.) $1/mo.
Paramount Plus Subscription with ads Yes, $8/month Simultaneous streams 3 Live TV Select live sports (NFL on CBS & UEFA Champions League) Price Starting at $8/month or $60/year If you enjoy CBS offerings, you'll want to subscribe to Paramount+.You get access to hit shows like and , as well as a variety of SHOWTIME content.Stream on Paramount+ Expand Collapse Spotify Still the world’s reigning champion for audio streaming platforms, Spotify currently boasts more than 751 million active monthly users globally, with 290 million of them being Premium subscribers (as of the end of Q4 2025).
With a catalog north of 100 million tracks, audiobooks, and podcasts, and, for my money, the best user experience, discovery, and constantly-evolving features of its competitors, it’s no wonder.Vis-à-vis, prices gonna go up from time to time.Spotify still offers its Individual, Duo, Family, and Student tiers, with all of its tiers being ad-free in the Premium variety.
In mid-January, the Stockholm-based company announced its latest price hike, its third in four years, taking effect for February’s first billing cycle.Here’s how it breaks down.Spotify Plan Old Price New Price Increase Individual $12/mo.
$13/mo.$1/mo.Duo $17/mo.
$19/mo.$2/mo.Family $20/mo.
$22/mo.$2/mo.Student $6/mo.
$7/mo.$1/mo.Spotify Subscription with ads No ads on any paid plan Price Starting at $11.99/month, or $5.99/month for students Spotify is a pioneer in music streaming.
It features a vast library, impressive bitrate, curated and custom playlists, as well as offline streaming.Spotify is available for free and for a monthly or annual fee.See Available Plans Expand Collapse Crunchyroll Anime fans will be very familiar with the excellence that is Crunchyroll, which is the largest dedicated anime streamer in the U.S., and the premier service outside Japan.
It boasts a library of more than 50,000 episodes and 2,000 series and movies, as well as the go-to service for fans who want a steady pipeline of same-day simulcasts of episodes as they air in Japan.Its big franchises and fan faves include series like J, and .Crunchyroll’s three tiers do not offer ad-free options, making for a cleaner, less distracting experience viewers like—but pay for.
On February 2, the Sony-owned service raised prices across all its subs by $2 per month, including the first increase for its base Fan tier since 2019.The new pricing takes effect on the first billing date after March 4, 2026.To soften the blow, Crunchyroll is offering a limited annual Fan plan for $67 per year, and has also added offline downloads to the Fan tier for the first time.
Here's the price breakdown.Crunchyroll Plan Old Price New Price Increase Fan (ad-free, 1 stream) $8/mo.$10/mo.
$2/mo.Mega Fan (ad-free, 4 streams) $12/mo.$14/mo.
$2/mo.Ultimate Fan (ad-free, 6 streams + manga) $16/mo.$18/mo.
$2/mo.Crunchyroll Subscription with ads No, all ad-free Price Starting at $8/month Simultaneous streams 1, 4, or 6 Live TV No See at Crunchyroll Expand Collapse Amazon Music Unlimited Amazon Music Unlimited, with a massive collection of songs and various plans, is suitable for Amazon Prime members and non-members alike.It offers a 90-day free trial and supports spatial audio.
See at Amazon Expand Collapse Amazon Music Unlimited If you’re not on the Spotify or Apple Music train, Amazon Music Unlimited sits in the third spot.Amazon’s premium offering sits above the basic Amazon Music service that comes bundled with your Prime membership.It offers spatial audio, both lossless and hi-res audio formats (Spotify just got into the lossless game recently) for more discerning ears, and its library is competitively large at more than 100 million tracks.
Amazon’s ownership of Audible means integrated audiobooks and the service also offers ad-free podcasts.On February 6, 2026, Amazon announced it was raising the price for Music Unlimited—for its Individual (both Prime and non-Prime) and Family plans in the U.S., U.K., and Canada—for the second time in a year, with the change affecting existing subscribers on the billing date after March 5, 2026.Here's the latest pricing.
Music Unlimited Plan Old Price New Price Increase Individual (non-Prime) $12/mo.$13/mo.$1/mo.
Individual (Prime member) $11/mo.$12/mo.$1/mo.
Family (monthly) $20/mo.$22/mo.$2/mo.
Family (annual) $199/yr.$219/yr.$20/yr.
Amazon Music Unlimited Amazon Music Unlimited, with a massive collection of songs and various plans, is suitable for Amazon Prime members and non-members alike.It offers a 90-day free trial and supports spatial audio.See at Amazon Expand Collapse We’ve been at this streaming game for a while now, and as the “Golden Age” of streaming is well and truly dead, it’s not likely that it’ll be the end of the increases for 2026—can’t wait to see what Paramount does with Warner and all the fun that will entail.
We'll update this post as more services increase their prices.
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