Netflix is changing plans to start from £5.99, but you'll likely need to pay more.
Netflix offers a basic service, for £5.99, for those looking for a lower-cost way to stream movies and TV programmes. Sounds too good to be true? Well, there is a catch; adverts! Adverts are around 15 or 30 seconds in length. They will play before and during series and films plus an average of 4 to 5 minutes of adverts per hour, meaning it's pretty similar to the other terrestrial UK TV stations and other satellite/cable channels.
What other differences are there between the £5.99 service and the more expensive service?
A limited number of films and TV series won't be available due to licensing restrictions, so there might be slightly fewer choices of programming.
Video quality up to 720p/HD (For both our Basic with Adverts and Basic plans.
You can still stream video via your mobile devices, but you won't have the ability to download titles, so if you like the idea of downloading something to watch when you don't have internet access, this service isn't for you, you'll have to go for the £12.99 a month service which does offer the download option.
Netflix launched this new £5.99 package after losing around 1.2M subscribers in 2022 as the cost of living crisis forced households to cut back on bills, like streaming subscriptions. Initially, millions of subscribers cancelled their Netflix account, either due to the extra cost or to show Netflix what they thought of prices being upped and password sharing being stopped; however, 5.9 million people signed up to Netflix in the three months to the end of June 2023, so it seems that people have just accepted that if they want the service, they'll have to pay!
On 23 May 2023, Netflix removed the option for password sharing outside your household (not that they actually allowed you to do that anyway, but it was possible to do this!), so if you wanted to let your friend use you aren't able to do so unless you pay an additional £5.99 per month for this option. You can only buy extra profiles on Netflix's standard and premium plans though. This might be more expensive, but if someone moves out and still wants Netflix, it will at least be saving over having to take out a whole new subscription; it would be an £84 saving a year on the cost of taking out a new standard Netflix account!
My daughter moved into her own flat, and it has meant that she no longer lives in our 'household' so she can no longer watch Netflix, It's a bit of a shame, as nothing has really changed; it's still the same number of people that would be using the account, it's just one of the family would have been using it 12 miles away from the rest of us, and now it means me paying an extra £71.88 a year for her to watch using the family account.
The table below shows all the Netflix packages available for new subscribers as of February 2025.
Basic Netflix with ads £5.99 | Standard - £12.99 | Premium - £18.99 |
✓ Watch on 1 supported device at a time | ✓ Watch on 2 supported devices at a time | ✓ Watch on 4 supported devices at a time |
Some movies and TV shows unavailable. Unlimited mobile games | ✓ Unlimited movies, TV shows, and mobile games | ✓ Unlimited movies, TV shows, and mobile games |
✓ Watch in HD | ✓ Watch in Full HD | ✓ Watch in Ultra HD |
| ✓ Ad-free TV shows and movies | ✓ Ad-free TV shows and movies |
| ✓ Download on 2 supported devices at a time | ✓ Download on 4 supported devices at a time |
It may be worth checking if your current, paid-for TV provider offers any special deals for adding Netflix to your account. I'm with Sky, and I get Netflix at a discount. Some packages give you Netflix for nothing, sometimes just for a few months, but it's definitely worth checking out; the deals change all the time, and watch out for special deals, especially around events such as Black Friday! !
If you live with a friend or family member who also has a Netflix account, you can save money by sharing a subscription. The Standard plan without ads allows you to watch on two screens simultaneously, and you don’t have to watch the same thing. By splitting the cost with someone else, you’ll both only pay £6.50 per month for ad-free, high-definition streaming.
If you live with two or three others who also use Netflix, you can save even more by splitting the cost of the Premium plan, which costs £18.99 per month. You can split the cost among yourselves, paying £6.33 per month or £4.75 per month, respectively. This way, you can all enjoy ultra HD streaming, but without you spending a combined minimum of £38.97 if you all subscribed to the £12.99 a month package!
Amazon Prime offer Prime Video as part of their benefits package, and you can use that to watch movies and TV programmes; however, as of February 2024, you'll have to pay an extra £2.99 a month, or £35.88 per year to watch the shows without adverts, so unless you don't mind being interrupted while watching your show, it's another monthly expense you might not want to pay! I certainly don't pay the extra £2.99 a month; most films only have 1 advert, and I can handle that!
If you haven't tried Amazon Prime, you can take out a free month trial, which will give you all the Amazon Prime benefits, including Prime Video; just don't forget to cancel the subscription before the month ends, if you don't want to start paying!
Other deals for other subscription TV channels can be found. For example, if you are with O2 and use O2 Priority, you can get £2 off a Disney+ subscription, Tesco Clubcard users can grab 50% off 3 months of Disney+, If you have a Lloyds Club account, you can get 12 months of free Disney+, EE TV offers 6 months of Apple TV; its always worth looking about for deals, they do p[op up every few months, and sometimes its worth switching between rival subscription services every few months to take advantage of deals, or to change the type of content available to you as the services do show different films/shows etc, and sticking with just one can limit what's available for you to watch.
Suppose you exclusively stream content on Netflix or similar platforms like Prime Video or use catch-up services such as ITVX, Channel 4, My5, etc.. In that case, you can save up to £159 annually by cancelling your TV licence, but that does mean you can't watch any live TV, so make sure you can commit to that before cancelling!
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▶︎ Did you know that there are secret codes that will show you all the movies available for a specific genre that might not actually be showing on the main Netflix menu? You can find out more about this on the blog here.