Peacock Raises Prices Across All Plans: New Tiers, What It Means for Viewers

Streaming bills just got a little heavier for millions of subscribers. Peacock confirmed on Tuesday that it is raising prices across all of its plans, with the cheapest ad-supported tier climbing a dollar and the top-tier ad-free option jumping by a full $3. It’s the fourth price hike the NBCUniversal-owned streamer has announced in four years, and it lands as the platform enters its most profitable stretch yet.

The new pricing breaks down like this: the ad-supported Select tier moves from $7.99 to $8.99 a month; the ad-supported Premium tier jumps from $10.99 to $12.99; and the ad-free Premium Plus plan gets the biggest bump, rising from $16.99 to $19.99. For new and returning subscribers, the increases took effect on August 18. Existing subscribers won’t feel the sting immediately — the new rates apply on their next billing date on or after September 17. Annual plans are swept into the change as well, though anyone on a current annual plan or an active promotional offer keeps their existing rate until that plan or promo expires.

In a support-page statement, the company said the price changes allow it “to continue to create the best experience for its viewers, remain competitive in the marketplace, and deliver unique content across all genres.” Translation, in less corporate speak: live sports and prestige originals don’t come cheap, and the streamer wants to keep paying for them.

Why Peacock keeps raising prices

Peacock has been in a consistent up-and-to-the-right pattern since it launched back in 2020. Its previous increase, a $3 bump across the board, landed in July 2025. Stack the hikes together and the service that started as one of the cheapest ways to watch NBC content is now firmly in the middle of the streaming pack.

The timing here is hardly an accident. Last month, NBCUniversal reported that Peacock turned its first-ever profitable quarter, with subscribers climbing to 48 million. The momentum came on the back of the NBA playoffs, the FIFA World Cup, and the reality juggernaut Love Island. When a streamer finally flips from burning cash to making it, the instinct is usually to press the advantage — and in the current streaming economics, that means nudging the price.

But Peacock hasn’t just been padding prices and hoping nobody notices. It’s been actively loading the service with reasons to stay. Recent months brought an AI-powered “Bravoverse” vertical-video feed serving up clips from franchises like The Real Housewives and Vanderpump Rules, a coming feature that will stream live games in a vertical format using real-time AI-driven cropping for phone screens, and a pair of interactive mystery games — Law & Order: Clue Hunter and Public Eye — built with AI gaming studio Wolf Games.

A catalog worth keeping up with

If you’re wondering whether the new price is worth it, the honest answer is: it depends on what you actually watch. Peacock’s library skews heavily toward the NBCUniversal family, and that’s a genuine strength. The network keeps an enormous rotating slate of comfort viewing, from sitcom mainstays like The Office and Parks and Recreation to modern prestige like Poker Face and the massive western Yellowstone. For one platform, that’s a genuinely broad spread — you get workplace comedy next to drama and a little reality TV, all in the same subscription.

The sports angle is where Peacock’s price math starts to make more sense. Between Premier League football, Sunday Night Football, the Olympics, and an expanding slate of live NBA and WWE coverage, the service has quietly become one of the better-value sports destinations in streaming. That vertical live-game feature arriving later is aimed squarely at fans who want to check scores and watch on the go without squinting at a tiny embedded video.

What the price increase means for you

Let’s be practical. If you’re on the $8.99 Select tier and mostly watch NBC sitcoms and the occasional movie, you’re paying the same as before for essentially the same service — the ad-supported tiers took the smallest hit relative to their history. If you’ve been paying for Premium Plus to skip the ads entirely, that $19.99 price point puts Peacock right alongside the priciest tiers at Netflix and Disney+, which is a tougher pill to swallow unless you’re deep in the live-sports habit.

There’s also a decent chance you won’t be paying for Peacock at all much longer. Last month NBCUniversal announced a partnership that will bundle Peacock’s Premium plan into YouTube Premium for U.S. subscribers starting in early 2027. If that rolls out as promised, a chunk of Peacock’s audience may effectively get the service bundled into a subscription they already have — which takes some of the edge off the very same price rise.

And, of course, there’s the corporate context lurking behind all of it. Both Peacock and its parent NBCUniversal are preparing to split from Comcast next year. A standalone streaming business needs to demonstrate it can stand on its own financial feet, and a couple of dollars more per subscriber is one of the fastest, most reliable ways to thicken that bottom line before the separation goes through.

The bigger streaming picture

Peacock is hardly alone in this. The last twelve months have seen Netflix, Max, Disney+, and YouTube Premium all push their prices up as the industry pivots from growth-at-all-costs to actual profitability. The era of absurdly cheap streaming bundles is over; services are now pricing based on what they think their content is worth, and testing how much subscribers will absorb before they start cutting back.

For viewers, the practical playbook is the same as ever. Price hikes are the perfect excuse to do a subscription audit — drop the services you barely open, keep the ones you watch weekly, and rotate through the rest one or two at a time. If your viewing leans heavily toward live sports or the Suits-to-Yellowstone comfort zone, Peacock at the new prices still stacks up reasonably against its rivals. If you’re only popping in for one show, it might be time to wait for a promo offer rather than paying full freight.

Long story short: Peacock’s latest increase is less a shock and more a confirmation of where the whole industry is heading. The service is turning a profit, spending on new features, and preparing to go it alone as part of the Comcast split — and all of that costs money. Whether the new price is worth it is a question only you can answer based on your own watchlist. But one thing is certain: this probably won’t be the last price change you see from any streamer this year.