'Tis the season to save money on your entertainment budget with Cyber Monday streaming deals. By this point every year, I’ve already canceled pretty much every subscription I have. Then Cyber Monday rolls in, and I rebuild my entire watchlist lineup at a steep discount. It’s a strategy many people overlook, but it stretches your money way a lot further.
Americans now spend about $61 a month on streaming, according to a Deloitte report — that’s more than $700 a year just to keep up with shows and movies everyone’s talking about. The thing is, you don’t have to stay subscribed to everything every month. At Tom’s Guide, we've long championed the art of churning: Hit pause on the services you’re not using, and come back only when there’s something you actually want to watch. With price hikes continually rolling out, it’s practically a survival tactic.
7 best streaming deals I'm getting
- Disney+, Hulu bundle (with ads): $4.99/month for one year
- HBO Max Basic (with ads): $2.99/month for one year
- Apple TV: $5.99/month for 6 months
- Paramount+ Premium $2.99 for 2 month
- Peacock Premium or Paramount+ Essential: free with Walmart+ Membership (now 50% off)
- Starz: $12 for 1 year
- YouTube TV: now $62.99/month @ YouTube
Give yourself the gift of streaming deals
Every Black Friday/Cyber Monday, most streaming services offer some kind of discount. But generally, these deals are only available to new subscribers (in some cases, returning subscribers who canceled a while ago).
There's a super simple way to get around this fine print: Sign up with another email address.
You probably already have one (or a few). But if not, just go to any one of the numerous email services with a free tier, like Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook, AOL, etc.
So, here's how I do this every year. First, Past Me already set calendar reminders to cancel the services I subscribed to during Black Friday/Cyber Monday week last year. So, I just make sure to cancel by the scheduled date.
Then, I use my new email address to sign up for the streaming deals. In my opinion, the best ones every year are Peacock, HBO Max and Paramount Plus. They are the ones worth investing in.
Some of the best Black Friday/Cyber Monday streaming deals right now are for annual plans, which means you can't really churn these services out monthly. But since they're so deeply discounted, it's worth the upfront cost.
Just don't forget to set that reminder to cancel next year.
Is there a Netflix Black Friday deal?
Unfortunately, the answer is: no, Netflix does not have a Black Friday deal. Trust me, I look every year, and it's always the same ... radio silence on their end.
Historically, Netflix has rarely offered discounts on its plans, and that includes not participating in Black Friday or Cyber Monday deals.
So, Netflix is sticking with its usual monthly prices: $7.99 for the Standard ad-supported plan; $17.99 for Standard ad-free; and $24.99 for Premium with 4K ultra HD.
However, since you aren't locked into a discounted annual plan, Netflix is the easiest streaming service to churn. They know this, too, which is why they've been splitting the seasons of their hottest shows ("Stranger Things" season 5 is being released in three volumes, for example), forcing you to keep Netflix to see the rest of the new episodes.
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