I watched hours of Tubi and Pluto TV to see which free streaming service has more ads — and one has twice as many
Streaming is only getting more and more expensive these days (RIP my budget), so I'm always looking for an excuse to shout out free streaming services to help you save without skimping on all your favorite shows and movies. Of course, the one downside to all that "free" content is you have to sit through ad breaks. But honestly, since Netflix, Disney+, and all the rest of the best streaming services put their ad-free tiers behind a paywall, having to suffer through a few ads is pretty much par for the course these days. It's practically become cable 2.0.
Granted, some free streaming services are more annoying than others when it comes to bombarding you with ads. But which one is the worst offender? I decided to get to the bottom of that question by timing the ad breaks on two of our favorite free streaming services: Tubi and Pluto TV. I had a hunch which one would have more, but even I didn't expect Pluto TV to run ads twice as long as Tubi.
It was genuinely starting to piss me off, and then an ad popped up less than 5 minutes before the credits rolled on a movie and I lost it, y'all. I mean, it's hard to argue with free — especially these days — but come on! Do these platforms have to make it so obvious that they're milking our attention spans for all their worth?
That wasn't the only discovery I found, too. Turns out the number of ads each platform serves depends on the kinds of shows and movies you're watching. Read on to learn about my methodology and what I found. Do you have a preferred free streaming platform? Which ones should I compare next? Let us know in the comments!
Tubi vs. Pluto TV ad time: The methodology
To keep things fair, I put both Tubi and Pluto TV through the same paces to compare their ad loads. I used a stopwatch on my phone to track the total time spent in ad breaks across three movies and two TV shows on both platforms. I watched both on an Amazon Fire TV using the dedicated Pluto TV and Tubi apps.
I initially was only going to do one TV show per platform, but I noticed that the first show I started with ("The Twilight Zone" on Tubi) had significantly fewer ad breaks than the movies I'd watched. I experimented with other, more recent shows and found that the older shows on both Tubi and Pluto TV show fewer ads than the newer ones. I also tried to hit a couple of different genres, as well as movies leaving soon, to see if there was any variation.
On Tubi, I watched "Second Hand Lions" (111 minutes), "Roll Bounce" (112 minutes), and "Paid in Full" (98 minutes). "Second Hand Lions" had six ad breaks for a total of 12 minutes and 45 seconds. "Roll Bounce" — y'all remember "Roll Bounce"? That movie with Lil' Bow Wow on skates? I completely forgot it existed — also had six ad breaks but came in a little longer at 13 minutes and 15 seconds. Finally, "Paid in Full" had the fewest with five ad breaks at 12 minutes and 15 seconds.
On the TV side of things, I watched "The Twilight Zone" and "Everybody Hates Chris." "The Twilight Zone" had a single ad break right at the beginning that lasted 45 seconds, while "Everybody Hates Chris" had two ad breaks totaling 2 minutes and 45 seconds.
Moving on to Pluto TV, I watched one of my all-time favorite fantasy movies, "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves" (134 minutes) as well as "Friday" (91 minutes) and "Love Lies Bleeding" (104 minutes). As a side note, it absolutely killed me that all three "Friday" movies were the most-watched movies on the platform.
"Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves" had a whopping 11 ad breaks — the most on either platform by a wide margin — totaling over 31 minutes of ads, including the one that made me lose it when it popped up just before the credits. "Friday" was a little better with eight breaks, clocking in at 29 minutes and 45 seconds, while "Love Lies Bleeding" had nine ad breaks for a total of 30 minutes and 45 seconds.
The ads weren't quite as bad with the shows on Pluto TV, but still worse than Tubi. I watched a couple of episodes of "Frasier," which averaged about 7 minutes and 20 seconds per episode, as well as "I Love Lucy," which came in at just under five minutes per episode.
Tubi vs. Pluto TV ad time: The results
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | Tubi |
Pluto TV |
Movies |
12 minutes 45 seconds |
30 minutes 30 seconds |
Older shows |
45 seconds |
4 minutes 45 seconds |
Newer shows |
2 minutes 45 seconds |
7 minutes 20 seconds |
Between Tubi and Pluto TV, Tubi is the clear winner for the fewest ads. When it came to movies, Tubi clocked in less than half the ad time as Pluto TV, averaging just under 13 minutes. Meanwhile, if you're watching a movie on Pluto TV, be prepared to sit through over 30 minutes of ads.
Older shows on both platforms showed fewer ads than newer ones, which was surprising but makes sense. There's likely not as many viewers clambering to binge shows from the '50s and '60s compared to those from the '90s and 2000s.
TV is where I saw the biggest gap between the two platforms, with a single episode of a classic show on Pluto TV ("I Love Lucy") spending four times as long on ads compared to one ("The Twilight Zone") on Tubi. When it came to newer shows, the difference wasn't quite as stark, but Pluto TV still averaged an extra five minutes of ads per episode compared to Tubi.
So there you have it! Pluto TV wastes your time with twice as many ads as Tubi, many of which are for its own platform, something that always drives me up the wall. The upside is that Pluto TV has a far better selection of recent releases and classic movies, though you will have to make an account to watch them. You don't need an account to watch things on Tubi, though creating one does unlock some creature comforts, like the option to pick up where you left off in a show or movie.
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