Peacock Raises Prices for the Fourth Time in Four Years
Peacock is raising prices across all its streaming plans effective August 18, 2026, the service's fourth price increase in four years (Variety).
The ad-supported Select tier rises from $7.99 to $8.99 per month. The Premium plan with ads moves from $10.99 to $12.99. The ad-free Premium Plus plan increases from $16.99 to $19.99 (The Verge). Annual plans are affected as well. New and returning subscribers see the new pricing immediately; existing subscribers will see the change on their next billing date on or after September 17 (The Verge).
This is a familiar rhythm. Peacock's first increase took effect August 17, 2023, raising its ad-supported Premium plan by $1 to $5.99 (Variety). In July 2024, the service raised annual prices, pushing Premium from $59.99 to $79.99 and Premium Plus from $119.99 to $139.99 per year (Variety). A third hike followed in July 2025, when the ad-supported Premium tier went up $3 to $10.99 and Premium Plus rose accordingly (Variety). Now, roughly thirteen months later, all tiers move up again.
Peacock stated that the price change is intended to "create the best experience for viewers, remain competitive, and deliver unique content" (The Verge). The company has been adding features alongside the hikes: vertical video for NBA streams, a "Bravoverse" feed with clips from shows like Love Island, and mobile games. Peacock is also testing perks for long-term subscribers and will soon be included within a YouTube Premium subscription (The Verge).
The pricing moves come as NBCUniversal reported that Peacock turned a profit for the first time and reached 48 million subscribers (The Verge). Peacock and NBCUniversal are also preparing to split from Comcast next year (The Verge). Variety first reported the August 2026 price increase (The Verge).
The broader context here is worth pausing on. Four increases in four years amounts to a deliberate, compounding strategy. The Select tier, which entered this cycle at $4.99 in its earliest form, now sits at $8.99 — an 80 percent cumulative increase. Premium Plus has moved from roughly $9.99 to $19.99 over the same period. Whether the feature additions, vertical NBA video, mobile games, a Bravo clip feed, justify that escalation is a judgment individual subscribers will make with their wallets.
The business logic, though, is clearer. Peacock has reached profitability and 48 million subscribers, which means the service is no longer in a pure land-grab phase — the stage where a streaming platform's priority is signing up as many users as possible, even at a loss. Streaming services that have crossed into profitability, Netflix most prominently, have shown that price increases on a profitable base tend to stick when content investment remains visible to subscribers. The upcoming Comcast spin-off adds another variable: a standalone NBCUniversal will need Peacock's revenue line to look robust.
The YouTube Premium inclusion is the most strategically interesting signal in this announcement. Bundling Peacock into a YouTube Premium subscription gives NBCUniversal access to Google's enormous subscriber base without requiring Peacock to win those users through direct acquisition. That distribution channel could offset churn risk — the likelihood that subscribers cancel — from the price increase, particularly among price-sensitive ad-supported tier subscribers who now face a monthly bill that keeps climbing.
Peacock's website currently lists the Select annual plan at $89.99, the Premium annual at $129.99, and the Premium Plus annual at $199.99 (peacocktv.com). A student discount offers Premium at $5.99 per month for 12 months (peacocktv.com). Whether those annual rates and discounts adjust in tandem with the monthly increases is something existing annual subscribers will discover at their next renewal.
For now, the pattern is established: raise prices, add features, point to content investment, and rely on a combination of bundling partnerships and inertia to retain the subscriber base. It has worked for three consecutive cycles. The fourth begins today.
