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Amazon Prime customers will have to pay an extra £2.99 per month if they want to stream without adverts from 5 February.
Amazon announced its plans last year, following in the footsteps of Netflix and Disney.
With a new year having just begun, now could be the perfect opportunity to go through your subscriptions to see if you're making the most of them, or if any could be cut.
Here, Which? rounds up the latest price changes on subscriptions and offers tips to save money on your favourite services.
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Which subscriptions have gone up?
Netflix
Netflix increased the price of its premium and basic plans in October 2023. This means the Basic plan (which is not available to new customers) costs £7.99 a month – a £1 increase. Its premium plan is £2 more than before, at £17.99 a month.
The cost of both standard plans remains the same, with standard with adverts costing £4.99 a month and standard without adverts costing £10.99 a month.
Netflix previously increased prices in May 2022 and began to crack down on sharing passwords. However, you can pay £4.99 a month extra on a Standard and Premium plan to add a user from outside your household.
Amazon Prime
Currently, the subscription, which includes added benefits such as free one-day delivery, costs £8.99 a month or £95 a year. From 5 February 2024, films and TV shows will include adverts. A new ad-free option will be launched, costing an additional £2.99 a month.
Disney+
In November, existing subscribers automatically moved to its new 'premium' plan, which costs £10.99 a month or £109.99 a year.
If you want to pay less you can move to one of its two new cheaper plans, which are both limited to two devices at any one time. There's 'standard with ads', at £4.99 a month, or 'standard' at £7.99 a month or £79.90 a year.
Spotify
The price of its Premium, Duo and Family plans went up by £1 in August 2023. This means Premium now costs £10.99, Duo is £14.99 and Family is £17.99 a month.
The student package remains unchanged at £5.99. It last raised prices in April 2021.
Pret a Manger
The coffee shop chain announced it would be upping the price of its coffee subscription by £5 in April 2023, to £30 a month. The relaunched offer, called Club Pret, gives subscribers 10% off freshly made food and snacks. You can currently get your first month with a 50% discount.
When the coffee subscription first launched in September 2020, it was priced at £20 a month.
Now
Sky's on-demand streaming service streamlined its plans which led to price cuts and the merging of some passes in June 2021. However, adverts appeared for customers using Entertainment and Cinema passes unless they paid for Boost.
Now increased the price of its monthly Boost to £6, and the price of its Sports Monthly membership to £34.99 in March 2023.
The entertainment package and cinema package both cost £9.99 a month, but there are often deals for limited periods. For example, new customers can currently get the cinema and entertainment package for £13.99 a month for six months, a monthly saving of £4.
Top tips to save on subscription costs
From sharing plans to joining a library, we've rounded up 11 ways to save money on the cost of subscriptions.
1) Share your subscriptions
Sharing your streaming subscriptions within your household is one of the quickest ways to save money. Most services have plans you can switch to that could help you save, without losing personalised features.
Spotify for example offers a Premium Duo plan for £14.99 a month, perfect for two people in the same household, saving £83.88 a year versus the price of two individual subscriptions.
For larger households, there is the Premium Family plan for £17.99 a month, which allows up to six users to get premium benefits, saving a whopping £575.40 a year over six individual subscriptions.
You can also share your Amazon Prime benefits with another person in your household, halving the cost of having two separate accounts.
2) Select the annual option
If you love a streaming site and know you won't want to cancel it, then you could save by buying the membership in one go, rather than paying monthly.
For example, Amazon Prime costs £8.99 a month or £95 for the year – a saving of £12.88.
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Do you really need to pay for all the TV and film subscriptions you enjoy at the same time?
Netflix, Now, Amazon Prime and Disney+ will allow you to cancel monthly subscriptions at any point with no exit fee, so if you can plan what you want to watch you could alternate to save.
For example, if you subscribed to both Amazon Prime and Netflix (Standard) at a monthly rate, you would pay £239.76 a year in total.
However, if you alternated months you would pay just £119.88 a year (six months of Amazon at £8.99 and six months of Netflix at £10.99).
If you know you want to watch something specific, do your research to find out which platforms actually have it and shop around for the cheapest one to watch it on.
Free app JustWatch pinpoints where you can find television shows and films. It also compares the best price for streaming what you fancy watching.
For example, Line of Duty and Peaky Blinders are available on Netflix and BBC iPlayer. The cheapest Netflix subscription is £4.99 a month, but if you already have a TV licence, BBC iPlayer is free.
5) Downgrade your plan
You could save by switching to a cheaper plan.
For example, Netflix has three different plans for new customers: Standard with adverts (£4.99), Standard (£10.99) and Premium (£17.99)
If you're willing to put up with adverts (which is a bit like watching live television), then you could save £72 a year compared to the Standard package.
Amazon Prime also offers a basic membership called Prime Video for £5.99 a month. It doesn't include other benefits such as free premium delivery, but it's worth it if you only want to stream shows. It would save you £36 a year.
If you're only using your subscription a handful of times a month it's probably not worth it.
For example, the Pret coffee subscription costs £30 a month. This allows you to have five hot drinks a day (but you can only redeem one every 30 minutes).
A regular-sized latte in Pret cost £3.50, so if you get three a week it would cost £42 a month. That's a saving of £12.
However, if black filter coffee is your drink of choice, then it may be worth just buying them individually. A black coffee costs £1.70and would cost £20.40 a month if you had three a week, so you would be £9.60 worse off if you had the Pret subscription.
Some services will give you a free trial before you have to pay.
Music streaming services, Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, Amazon Music Unlimited and YouTube Premium all currently give new users a one-month free trial.
This means you can listen to music for five months before paying a penny.
However, remember to note the date the trial ends or set an alert so you avoid accidentally paying for the next month. Or just cancel as soon as you sign up if the subscription allows.
If you've recently bought an Apple device, you should get three months of free Apple TV. You'll have 90 days to redeem the offer.
8) Cancel what you don't use
If you have multiple bank accounts and different bills going out from each of them, you could lose track of the subscriptions you are signed up for.
Snoop and Emma are two apps that can help you get an overview of all your accounts in one place.
Once you have an overview of your finances it should be easy to spot subscriptions you no longer need or want.
Some banking apps also have features that make it easier to stay on top of bills. Starling Bank for example offers Bills Manager which allows you to set aside money each month just for your bills so you ensure you don't fall short.
You can use All 4, ITVX and My 5 for free(as long as you are not using them to watch live television).
For free music, BBC Sounds allows you to listen to live radio and has loads of podcasts and playlists – all completely free of charge, it even has a workout anthems playlist which is perfect for the gym.
If you fancy free e-books, magazines and newspapers, join your local library.
10) Check for bundles
Most mobile providers offer free extras with your contract which could give you access to your favourite streaming site for up to two years.
Some bank accounts with a monthly fee may also offer the choice of a subscription. For example, all Club Lloyds accounts come with the option to pick one lifestyle benefit a year and at the moment this includes a 12-month Disney+ subscription -–you might even get paid to switch.
It's important to make sure any new phone contract or bank account is right for you before taking it out, and make sure you shop around for the best deal.
You can earn money back on monthly and annual payments if you choose to make them with a cashback credit card. Just remember to pay back what you owe each month to avoid cashback gains being wiped out by interest charges.
It's also worth checking your credit card or debit card provider's app to see if it offers any specific cashback deals on a service you want.
You might also be able to get cashback on purchases using sites such as Quidco or TopCashback.
