YouTube TV pricing in 2025: what’s included
Sticker shock? The base plan for YouTube TV is now $82.99 a month, or $995.88 if you pay for 12 months upfront. That hike, rolled out in January 2025, pushed the service deeper into premium territory—well above where it sat a couple of years ago when it was $72.99. You still get 100+ live channels from major networks (ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC), a deep lineup of entertainment, sports, and news, plus unlimited cloud DVR.
Unlimited DVR really means you don’t have to babysit storage, but recordings do expire after nine months. For households, the plan includes up to six accounts and three simultaneous streams, which covers most families until a fourth device turns on at the same time. If that’s your normal evening, you’ll want to look at the 4K Plus add-on for unlimited streams at home.
Video quality depends on the channel. Many live channels top out at 1080p, with 60fps for some sports. True 4K is still limited to select live sports and on-demand programming even with the 4K add-on. Device support is broad—Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV, Google TV, most smart TVs, mobile devices, and game consoles—so setup is easy. If you’re upgrading from cable, the biggest change is how simple it is to start recording everything you watch without worrying about a hard drive filling up.
There’s also some fine print to keep in mind. YouTube TV ties your account to a home area. You can watch outside your home area, but there are limits on how long you can be away and how often you can change the home location. Taxes can apply depending on your state and city. And while the channel lineup is broad, regional sports networks (especially those under the Bally Sports banner) remain a gap, so in-market games can still be tricky depending on your team.
Context helps here. Since launch in 2017 at $35, the service has raised prices several times (notably in 2019, 2020, 2023, and now 2025). Rights fees for live TV—sports especially—keep rising. Google’s multiyear deal for NFL Sunday Ticket, reportedly around $2 billion annually, didn’t land on the base bill, but it reshaped sports on the platform and sits alongside other add-on costs.
Add-ons, promotions, and the real monthly bill
The base plan is just the starting price. Once you add sports extras, 4K streaming, Spanish-language channels, and NFL Sunday Ticket, the monthly total can jump fast—especially during football season.
Here’s what you can add and how much each costs in 2025:
- Spanish Package: $34.99/month. Adds 28+ Spanish-language channels, including sports and entertainment networks (think TUDN, ESPN Deportes, Universo, and more).
- 4K Plus: $9.99/month. Unlocks available 4K streams, offline downloads on mobile, and unlimited simultaneous streams at home (plus three outside your home).
- Sports Plus: $10.99/month. Packs in NFL RedZone, Fox Soccer Plus, beIN Sports and other niche sports channels.
- NFL Sunday Ticket (integrated with YouTube TV): Returning customers pay $47.25 per month through the regular season. New customers pay $276 total, split into eight non-cancelable payments of $34.50; the first charge hits at purchase.
Stack everything and you can see how the price doubles. During football season, a returning Sunday Ticket customer who also adds Spanish channels, 4K Plus, and Sports Plus pays roughly $186.21 a month: $82.99 (base) + $34.99 (Spanish) + $9.99 (4K Plus) + $10.99 (Sports Plus) + $47.25 (Sunday Ticket). Off-season, when Sunday Ticket isn’t billed, that total drops to about $138.96 if you keep the other add-ons.
For new Sunday Ticket buyers, the math changes slightly. The eight payments of $34.50 add up to $276 across the regular season. If you keep all add-ons, the per-month total during those eight payments is about $173.46: $82.99 + $34.99 + $9.99 + $10.99 + $34.50. If you only carry the base plan alongside Sunday Ticket, you’ll pay roughly $117.49 per month during the eight-payment window, then fall back to $82.99 once those payments end.
Want simpler scenarios? Here are a few common setups before tax:
- Base only: $82.99/month.
- Base + 4K Plus: $92.98/month.
- Base + Sports Plus: $93.98/month.
- Base + Spanish: $117.98/month.
- Base + 4K Plus + Sports Plus: $103.97/month.
- Base + Spanish + 4K Plus + Sports Plus (no Sunday Ticket): $138.96/month.
- Everything above + Sunday Ticket (returning): ~$186.21/month during the season.
A note on the annual price: $995.88 is simply 12 times the monthly rate. There’s no built-in discount for paying upfront. The practical upside is price certainty—if rates go up midyear, you’ve already locked in your cost for the term you prepaid.
Promos do exist. In August 2025, YouTube TV discounted the first three months by $99 total for new sign-ups (effectively $49.99/month for three months, then back to $82.99). Those offers are time-limited and only for people who haven’t used a free trial or subscribed before. If you’re new, that promo makes the first-year total lower than paying annually—at least when it’s available.
There are also retention offers for existing customers, though they’re not guaranteed. This year, some people who clicked through the cancellation flow were offered their old $72.99 price for six months. That’s a $60 cushion compared with the new rate. If you’re debating a switch, it’s worth checking the cancellation screen to see if an offer appears.
Sunday Ticket has a few gotchas worth calling out. It covers out-of-market Sunday afternoon games; it doesn’t include your local broadcast games, primetime matchups, playoffs, or the Super Bowl. Blackouts can apply. Payments are non-cancelable for the season once you buy. And while multiview and Key Plays enhance the experience on YouTube TV, what you get in 4K varies by network and week.
What about premium networks like Max, Starz, or Paramount+ with Showtime? Those are optional on top of everything above and will push the bill even higher. If you want a one-stop live TV hub and a full slate of premium originals and movies, it’s easy to creep past $200 in months when Sunday Ticket is active.
Here’s how to decide which add-ons you actually need:
- If you just want live TV and a big cloud DVR: stick to the base plan.
- If four or more screens are usually streaming at once at home: add 4K Plus for unlimited home streams, even if you don’t care about 4K.
- If you live for NFL whip-around coverage: Sports Plus for NFL RedZone is the play.
- If you watch out-of-market NFL games every Sunday: Sunday Ticket is the only way, but know it won’t fix local blackouts.
- If Spanish-language sports and entertainment are must-haves: the Spanish Package fills gaps the base plan doesn’t cover.
Want to trim the bill? A few easy moves help:
- Pause your membership in the off-season. You can pause YouTube TV for up to six months instead of canceling outright.
- Add sports packages only when you use them. Sports Plus and 4K Plus can be toggled month-to-month.
- Share within your household. Six accounts help avoid duplicate subscriptions across roommates or family.
- Skip 4K unless you have a 4K TV and watch content that’s actually offered in 4K.
How does this stack up against cable? On paper, a triple-digit cable bill often includes broadcast, regional sports, and equipment fees that inflate the sticker price. YouTube TV doesn’t charge box rental fees or broadcast surcharges, but the base price is now squarely in cable territory once you add sports. The flexibility edge is real—no contracts, quick add/remove, unlimited DVR—but the old promise of “way cheaper than cable” depends on how many extras you bolt on.
If your main goal is live sports, match the lineup to your teams before you commit. For example, if your in-market NBA or MLB games live on a regional sports network YouTube TV doesn’t carry, you may need a separate app or a different live TV provider. On the flip side, national games on ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, ESPN, TNT, and FS1 are well covered on the base plan.
For families, the three-stream limit is the biggest pain point. If two TVs are running and someone’s watching on a phone, that third stream can be the cap. 4K Plus removes that ceiling at home, and the offline downloads are handy for flights or kids’ tablets—just remember that 4K files are larger and take longer to download. Also factor in your internet plan: a 4K stream can use up to 7–10 GB per hour. If your ISP has data caps, that matters.
What you can expect day to day: the interface is fast, search is strong, and the Key Plays view for sports is genuinely useful. Multiview for Sunday Ticket is a neat party trick for crowded game windows. The DVR’s nine-month window is generous for seasonal shows and leagues, and you never have to clean it out. Channel disputes can and do happen in the live TV world, but YouTube TV has generally restored lost channels after negotiations—worth remembering with any provider.
Bottom line on costs? For a light viewer with no add-ons, $82.99 plus tax is the number. For a sports-first household with Sunday Ticket and the major extras, plan on roughly $186 a month during football season, dropping to around $139 once Sunday Ticket ends. New subscribers who catch a promo will shave down that first year. Existing subscribers who test the cancellation flow might snag a short-term discount. Either way, the real trick is treating add-ons like seasonal switches, not permanent fixtures.
