How much is Hulu? Prices and plans compared

Hulu is a great streaming service to subscribe to, especially if you’re a cord-cutter, as this streaming service offers a wide selection of TV series. Maybe Hulu isn’t the brightest streaming service when it comes to originals. They have them, but less than Max or Netflix, but it beats other streaming services for a library of well-known and popular TV shows and series.

You can also access it on almost every popular gadget, including Xbox, PS5, Fire Stick, and Roku.

Another neat feature of Hulu is its bundling choices; you can group Hulu, Disney Plus, Live TV, and ESPN+ all under one subscription. Taking into account that there are too many streaming services around, that may be a cool option.

The basic Hulu subscription is relatively cheap; you will pay $8 a month for a plan with ads since Hulu has raised prices in October 2022.

Having numerous options often makes picking a plan tricky. Perhaps the basic $8 monthly plan suits you, or maybe you’re leaning towards the high-end plan with Live TV, Disney+, and ESPN+ for $83. And you can pay for even more add-ons, so your Hulu subscription is much more flexible than any other streaming service around. So, let’s compare.

What are Hulu prices?

For the Hulu-only plans, there’s a free trial when you first sign up, giving you a chance to try out the service and see if it’s right for you. But if you want to start with Hulu+Live TV, the 30-day trial isn’t available.

Every Hulu plan, from the basic one to the most expensive Hulu + Live TV, supports up to 2 simultaneous streams so that you can share it with your family members. And you can sign in with up to 5 devices.

Now, let’s take a look at prices:

• $8 for a basic plan with ads.

This plan doesn’t offer you download support but supports 4K content (but Hulu has only a couple of titles offered in 4K). But that’s probably the best plan if you want to try Hulu. The $8 price makes it quite affordable. Ads don’t really bother me. Sure, they can get loud occasionally, but if that’s not the case, I don’t see why I’d shell out extra for a plan without them.

• $15 for a plan without ads.

There’s also an ad-free plan if you aren’t happy with commercials. It will cost you $7 more a month but gives you an option to download content and watch it offline. So, that may be the best choice if you’re traveling quite often.

• $70 for Hulu (with ads) + Live TV plan.

This plan adds Live TV to your Hulu plan, but Hulu will come with ads. With over 100 popular live channels available, it’s a solid choice if you’re considering cutting the cord and ditching traditional TV. But, as I said, there’s no free trial, so be ready to pay for the 1st month as well. And this plan will give you ESPN+ and Disney+ (with ads) content for free so that you will save $18 a month. And there’s no way to download Hulu content to watch offline.

• $83 for Hulu (no ads) + Live TV.

It’s the same plan as the plan for $70, but you will get Hulu and Disney+ content without ads and ESPN as well. That will save you $20 a month on these subscriptions. And with it, you can download content to offline watching.

Here’s how they compare with each other:

	Hulu with ads	Hulu without ads	Hulu (with-ads) + Live TV	Hulu (without ads) + Live TV
Price a month	$7.99	$14.99	$69.99	$82.99
Ads	Yes	No	Yes	No
Live TV	No	No	Yes	Yes
ESPN+	No	No	Yes	Yes
Disney Plus	No	No	With ads	No-ads
Streams at once	Up to 2	Up to 2	Up to 2	Up to 2
Devices	Up to 5	Up to 5	Up to 5	Up to 5
Downloads	No	Yes	No	Yes
Add-ons	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
4K Content	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

In my opinion, the Live TV plan is worth trying only if you want to watch broadcasts, There are 100+ channels, so if you need them, the $70 for the basic Hulu+Live TV is a good alternative for YouTube TV, which costs $73 a month.

What add-ons are available with Hulu?

Hulu also offers 10 add-ons, like Disney Plus, Max, Cinemax, and Sports add-ons. Here’s the complete list:

Add-ons	Price per month	Only with Live TV
Disney Plus (with ads)	$2	No
ESPN+	$9.99	No
Max	$15.99	No
Showtime	$10.99	No
Cinemax	$9.99	No
Starz	$8.99	No
Español	$4.99	Yes
Entertainment	$7.99	Yes
Sports Add-On	$9.99	Yes
Unlimited Screens	$9.99	Yes

You can still get a Disney+ and ESPN+ if you don’t need Live TV. ESPN is for the full price, and Disney Plus is discounted (you will save $5). However, there are some limitations. To get ESPN+ or Disney+, you need to be billed directly by Hulu, and you shouldn’t have a Disney+ subscription or ESPN+ subscription already.

When it comes to Live TV add-ons, you need a Hulu+Live TV subscription. Here are the list of channels you will get with each add-on.

Unlimited Screens 

For an added $9.99 per month, you can stream on countless devices within your home network, which could be a bonus for families or roommates. However, it caps at three mobile devices when you’re out and about.

And a word of caution for those hooked on premium add-ons like Max, Cinemax, STARZ, or SHOWTIME: You’re limited to five screens at a time, and only three of them can be mobile and outside your household. Go beyond, and you’re greeted with a “too many streams” error. It’s an intriguing feature, but it does come with its conditions.

Hulu in Disney Bundle

Hulu is also available as part of the Disney Plus bundle. You have three options to add Hulu to your Disney Plus subscription: Disney Plus+Hulu bundle (Duo Basic) for $9.99 month, you get both streamings with ads; Disney Plus, ESPN+, and Hulu bundle (Trio Basic) for $12.99 a month, they’re ad-supported as well; And Disney Plus, Hulu and ESPN+ bundle (Trio Premium) for $19.99 a month, this plan gives you Hulu and Disney+ without-ads.

Let’s look at what you will save with these bundles compared to subscribing to each one separately:

Bundle	Bundle price	Original price	You save, $	Discount
Duo Basic	$9.99	$15.98	$5.99	37%
Trio Basic	$12.99	$25.97	$12.98	50%
Trio Premium	$19.99	$33.97	$13.98	41%

Does Hulu+Live TV include Disney+ and ESPN+ for free?

Yes, in the Live TV, they’re included for free. For the plan Hulu (with ads), you will get Disney+(with ads); for the ad-free Hulu, you will also get an ad-free Disney+ subscription. Previously, you needed to subscribe to a Disney Plus bundle to get a Disney Plus bundle, but now you get them as part of the Live TV plan without extra cost.

How Hulu’s price compares to other streaming services

With $8 for the most basic plan, Hulu can be compared to streamings like Max ($10, with ads), Netflix ($7 for an ad-supported plan), and Amazon Prime Video ($9 but without ads).

But I don’t recommend you to look at the price only; you need to consider your needs and the content you want to watch.

Service	Monthly Price	Yearly Price
Apple TV+	$6.99/month	No year plan - $83,88
Netflix	$6.99/month with ads, $15,49 without ads	No year plan - $83,88 a month or $185.88 without ads
Disney+	$7.99/month with ads, Premium - $10.99/month	No year plan - 95.88 / Premium - $109.99/year
Discovery+	$4.99/month with ads, $6.99/month ad-free	No year plan- $59.88/year with ads, No year plan - $83.88/year without ads
ESPN+	$9.99/month	$99.99/year
Max	$9.99/month with ads, $15.99/month without ads	$99.99/year with ads, $149.99/year without ads
Hulu	$7.99/month with ads, $12.99/month without ads	$79.99/year with ads, No year plan - $155.88/year without ads
Peacock	$5.99/month with ads, $11.99/month without ads	$59.99/year (Premium with ads), $119.99/year (Premium Plus without many ads)
Paramount+	$5.99/month with ads, $11.99/month without ads	$59.99/year with ads, $119.99*/year without ads
Prime Video	$8.99/month (Prime Video only), $14.99/month (Amazon Prime)	No year plan - $107.88/year (Prime Video only), $139/year (Amazon Prime)
Sling TV	$40/month (Orange + Blue) (*Sling Blue costs extra $5/month in markets that include all three of these local channels: ABC, NBC, and Fox)	No year plan - $480 a year(Orange + Blue)
Starz	$9.99/month	$74,99/year
YouTube TV	$72.99/month	No year plan - $875.88/year
AMC+	$8.99/month	No year plan - $107.88/year

Compared to other streaming services, especially Netflix, Hulu gives you 4K support, even the very basic plan. The only problem is that there’s only a pair of shows in 4K on the platform, so it’s included, but there’s nothing to watch.

Hulu vs Netflix

Netflix seems cheaper for the basic plan, $7 for Netflix vs. $8 for Hulu, but it’s loaded with commercials, so you probably need a Standard plan, which costs $15.49 to get rid of commercials. Hulu ad-free plan costs $15 as well.

You also can bundle Hulu with Live TV; Netflix has no such option. And you can get Disney Plus for only $2 if you’re going to buy Hulu. Netflix has a broader content library with 4,000 titles and a lot of great originals. Hulu has fewer titles, around 3,000, and fewer originals, but it’s good for classic TV series you can expand the library by adding Disney+.

If you want to add more screens or share your password, you will also face a problem, as Netflix has imposed password-sharing restrictions, and you need to pay $7.99 for additional members. With Hulu, you can add up to 5 devices and go with Unlimited Screens for $9.99 (that will also give you up to 3 devices to watch outside your household).

Hulu is much more customizable; if you want to include some add-ons like Disney+ or ESPN+, it will give you such an option, but Netflix won’t.

Hulu vs Amazon Prime Video

Amazon Prime Video costs $9 a month (compared to $8 for Hulu), but for that money, it’s ad-free (you will need to pay $15 to get rid of ads on Hulu). And you can get Amazon Prime Video as a part of Amazon Prime for $15.

You can also bundle Hulu with Live TV; there’s no such live broadcast feature to add with Prime Video. But you can add Amazon Channels so that you can add channels like Showtime.

When it comes to the number of content on Amazon Prime, video is much more extensive. And when I say much more, that’s almost 5 times more (2,700 on Hulu vs. 12,000 on Prime Video). But you can slightly fix this by adding around 2,000 titles on Disney+ just for $2.

Prime Video supports up to 3 simultaneous streams, while Disney Plus supports only 2 of them.

If you’re a student, you can get ad-supported Hulu for just $2, while Prime Video will cost $7 (but you will get a 6-month trial).

Hulu vs Max

When combined with Disney Plus, Hulu’s basic plan with ads is priced at $10 a month (or $8 without Disney Plus). On the other hand, Max provides access to HBO’s premium content and other studios. Their ‘With Ads’ plan is priced at $9.99, while the Ad-Free option costs $15.99. For 4K HDR streaming, the price goes up to $19.99 a month.

Max offers two streams with its $9.99 and $15.99 plans. You get four simultaneous streams if you opt for the Ultimate Ad-Free plan ($19.99 a month). Hulu’s streaming quality varies, but most titles are in HD, with some Hulu Originals in 4K Ultra HD.

Hulu has a significant edge with its Live TV offerings, especially the Hulu + Live TV plan at $70 a month. Max doesn’t offer traditional Live TV.

Max provides exclusive access to Warner Brothers archives, including the DC Universe and popular shows like “The Big Bang Theory” and “Friends.” On the other hand, Hulu offers various add-ons and bundles, including the option to combine with Disney Plus and ESPN Plus.

Hulu vs Apple TV+

Apple TV is $7, while Hulu is $8 for a plan with ads. Apple TV has no ads, even in the basic plan, but if you want Hulu without ads, you will need to pay $15.

But when it comes to the number of content, Hulu is far ahead (more than 2,700 shows vs. around 200 available on Apple TV+. However, Apple TV has some great originals, like Ted Lasso. If you add $2 to combine Hulu with Disney+, you will get more than 4,500 titles available, that’s far more than you can get with Apple TV+

Apple TV Plus doesn’t offer Live TV, focusing solely on its original content.

Apple TV Plus allows account sharing with up to five other people, while Hulu plans typically cap at two streams, which can be expanded with the Unlimited Screens add-on.

Learn more about how to choose the right streaming service for you here.