Streaming Price Index
US streaming prices are up 72% since 2019, versus 33% general inflation and 28% for cable and satellite TV.
A monthly index of what US streaming services charge, built from 18 tracked plans across 8 on-demand services and measured the way official inflation statistics are. January 2019 = 100. Current through June 2026.
- Streaming +72%
- All items (CPI) +33%
- Cable & satellite TV (CPI) +28%
What the index says
Streaming prices did almost nothing for a decade and then moved sharply. The on-demand index sat below its 2019 level for most of the 2010s, and was still only 102 in January 2022. Nearly all of the increase has landed since then, as every major service moved to ad-supported tiers and raised the price of ad-free ones. The largest single calendar year was 2023, at +17.7%.
Over the same months, general US inflation ran +32.7% and cable and satellite television, the product streaming was supposed to undercut, ran +28.4%. Streaming has been inflating about 2.2 times as fast as the economy as a whole and about 2.5 times as fast as cable. Live TV streaming, which competes with cable directly, has risen +97.5%.
Index by year
Index levels each January, with January 2019 set to 100. Read a row as a percentage: a level of 150 means prices were 50% above their 2019 level.
| Year | Streaming (on demand) | Streaming (live TV) | All items (CPI) | Cable & satellite TV (CPI) | Plans in basket |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 90.8 | — | 87.5 | 78.1 | 2 |
| 2012 | 90.8 | — | 90.0 | 81.3 | 2 |
| 2013 | 90.8 | — | 91.5 | 84.0 | 2 |
| 2014 | 90.8 | — | 92.9 | 86.2 | 3 |
| 2015 | 93.5 | — | 92.8 | 88.0 | 4 |
| 2016 | 94.6 | — | 94.1 | 89.5 | 6 |
| 2017 | 94.6 | 93.9 | 96.5 | 94.2 | 7 |
| 2018 | 96.6 | 93.9 | 98.5 | 98.0 | 7 |
| 2019 | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0 | 7 |
| 2020 | 96.5 | 131.4 | 102.5 | 103.5 | 9 |
| 2021 | 97.3 | 150.7 | 103.9 | 106.8 | 11 |
| 2022 | 102.0 | 158.3 | 111.7 | 111.5 | 14 |
| 2023 | 113.1 | 168.0 | 118.9 | 115.3 | 16 |
| 2024 | 133.1 | 176.8 | 122.5 | 121.8 | 17 |
| 2025 | 148.6 | 195.3 | 126.2 | 124.8 | 17 |
| 2026 to June 2026 | 171.6 | 197.5 | 132.7 | 128.4 | 18 |
The basket column is there on purpose. The early years rest on very few plans, because few services existed to track, and the index is correspondingly less meaningful the further back you read it. Download the full monthly series (CSV), read the underlying price history, or see what every service charges today.
How it is calculated
The index is a chained, matched-model index, the same family of formula the Bureau of Labor Statistics uses for the elementary parts of CPI. Each month it does this:
- Take every tracked plan that has a price in both this month and last month, and work out how much that specific plan changed.
- Average those changes within each service, so a service with four tracked tiers does not outweigh one with a single plan.
- Average across services, then multiply the running level by that month's result. Averages are geometric, which is what BLS uses at this level of CPI.
- Rescale the whole series so January 2019 reads 100.
Comparing only plans present in both months is the part that matters. It means a service launching, or a plan being retired, never moves the index by itself. That is not a detail: most of the services on this site launched during the period being measured, so a simple average of current prices would rise steeply on lineup changes alone, before any price had gone up.
Add-on fees are excluded, because an add-on is not a subscription. Discontinued plans count for the months they were actually sold and then drop out. Live TV is indexed separately, since it substitutes for cable rather than for Netflix.
What this number does not mean
- It measures list prices, not bills. The index tracks advertised monthly prices for individual plans. It does not know about bundles, annual plan discounts, promotional rates, or the fact that people cancel and re-subscribe. A household's actual streaming spend can move very differently.
- Every service counts equally. Apple TV carries the same weight as Netflix, because this site has price data and no subscriber data. A subscriber-weighted index would give a different, and probably higher, number, since the largest services have raised prices aggressively.
- There is no quality adjustment. CPI tries to account for products changing over time. This index does not. Catalogues grew and shrank, 4K and simultaneous-stream limits moved, and password sharing was restricted, all within the measured period. Some of the price increase bought something.
- Where you start counting changes the answer. The headline uses January 2019 because it sits just before the streaming-wars launches. Other starting points give other numbers, listed below.
- The comparison stops where the data stops. BLS publishes CPI about six weeks after a month ends, so every series here is cut to June 2026, the most recent month all of them cover.
Other starting points
| Since | Streaming (on demand) | All items (CPI) |
|---|---|---|
| January 2015 | +83.6% | +42.9% |
| January 2019 | +71.6% | +32.7% |
| January 2020 | +77.9% | +29.5% |
| January 2025 | +15.5% | +5.1% |
Sources and reuse
Streaming prices come from this site's own tracked data, where every price carries at least two source citations. See how the data is sourced or browse the full price history.
Inflation figures are the US Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Price Index for All
Urban Consumers, not seasonally adjusted: series
CUUR0000SA0 (all items) and CUUR0000SERA02 (cable and
satellite television service). BLS data is in the public domain. October 2025 was
not published because of the lapse in appropriations and is left as a gap.
The index series is free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 with attribution to Streaming Price Tracker. Download the monthly series as CSV.
Streaming price index FAQ
Is streaming getting more expensive?
Yes. The Streaming Price Index, which tracks 18 on-demand plans across 8 services, has risen +71.6% between January 2019 and June 2026. Prices were broadly flat until 2021 and have climbed steadily since. The steepest calendar year was 2023, when the index rose +17.7%.
Are streaming prices rising faster than inflation?
Yes, by roughly 2.2 times. Since January 2019 the streaming index is +71.6% while the US Consumer Price Index for all items is +32.7% over the same months. A streaming subscription that tracked general inflation instead would cost about 39% less today than it does.
How much have streaming prices gone up since 2019?
The average tracked on-demand streaming plan costs +71.6% more than it did in January 2019. Live TV streaming services have risen +97.5% over the same period. These are changes in advertised list prices, measured plan by plan, not changes in what the average household spends in total.
Is streaming still cheaper than cable?
Per service, yes, but the gap is closing. Cable and satellite television prices rose +28.4% since January 2019, while streaming rose +71.6% over the same months, roughly 2.5 times as fast. Streaming is still inflating from a much lower base, but it is closing the distance rather than holding it.
How is the Streaming Price Index calculated?
It is a chained, matched-model index, the same family of formula the US Bureau of Labor Statistics uses for CPI. Each month it compares the price of every plan against that same plan's price the previous month, averages those changes within each service and then across services, and chains the result into a running level set to 100 in January 2019. Comparing only matched plans month to month is what keeps a new service launching, or an old plan being retired, from moving the index on its own.
Why not just average the price of every streaming service?
Because that number measures the lineup as much as the prices. Most major services launched during the period this site tracks, so a straight average of current prices rises simply because more, and more expensive, services exist. An index compares each plan only against itself.