YouTube Premium is the only streaming service that can get away with price hikes

Ben Schoon | Apr 12 2026 - 9:00 am PT

YouTube confirmed this week that Premium prices are going up for the first time in around three years and, unlike every other streaming service, this is one price hike I’m more than willing to accept.

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Price hikes in streaming are annoyingly inevitable in 2026, with every platform seemingly introducing at least one new jump in price once in a while. Some are more frequent than others, like Netflix. But unless you’re on special deals or grandfathered pricing, your total streaming bill has probably gone up by at least $10-$20 a month over the past few years.

Now, YouTube Premium is taking its turn.

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Revealed this week, every YouTube Premium plan is getting a price hike. The changes are as follows:

Individual: $15.99/month, up from $13.99
Family: $26.99/month, up from $22.99
Lite: $8.99/month, up from $7.99
Music Premium: $11.99/month, up from $10.99

My reaction to this news was, “well, alright then.”

I’ve seen nothing but “this is an outrage” and “I’m canceling” in response to the price hike, and frankly, that thought hadn’t even crossed my mind. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not happy I’ll have to start paying an extra $4 every month for the YouTube Premium family plan with no added benefits or value. Objectively, that sucks.

But I also don’t feel like I’m suddenly not getting my money’s worth here.

YouTube Premium is probably my single-most valuable streaming subscription. YouTube is a part of my daily routine, and it’s the one service I actually feel like I’m getting its full value without trying. Disney+, Peacock, Netflix, etc, I never feel as though I’m using these apps enough to really get my money’s worth. YouTube? It’s not a question, and I’m reminded of that every time I watch a video without being signed in – the state of ads on YouTube is rough, mostly due to the necessity of the modern internet.

Ad blockers are everyone’s favorite thing to point to here, but they don’t work easily across devices, and I continue to feel uneasy about ad blockers in general. YouTube is one of the few platforms that transparently and, mostly fairly, directly pays those creating content – who am I to take that away?

YouTube Premium, or at least Premium Lite, is the only answer here.

It’s easy to forget that YouTube runs at an absolutely massive scale. Hundreds of hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, and YouTube promises to host that video essentially forever. Think about how much storage that takes! Storage is, at the moment, exceedingly expensive, so YouTube’s costs are rising dramatically. Yes, this is one of the biggest and most profitable companies on the planet, but if costs go up, someone’s going to have to pay, and I’d much rather fork over a couple of extra dollars than have that taken away from creators being paid by Premium subscriptions.

If this were any other streamer, I would have at least flinched at the higher pricing.

Netflix hasn’t gotten my money in years – there’s rarely content worth watching, and certainly not enough to sustain a subscription. Peacock and Paramount+ occasionally catch my attention, but the former only from time to time, and the latter only has a subscription from me because Walmart+ covers most of it. Disney+/Hulu is the only streaming subscription I frequent enough to feel as though I’m getting enough out of it but, even then, a price hike would have me at least considering hitting pause from time to time.

Higher prices sting, I won’t deny it, but I’m absolutely willing to pay a few extra dollars for YouTube Premium. Google knows this, but I also think it says a lot that where every other streamer has had multiple price bumps over the past 3 years, YouTube is just now getting to its first one.

What do you think?

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