Paramount has confirmed that some big changes are coming to Paramount+ in the U.S. in January 2026.
The first change is a price increase to both the streaming service's Essential and Premium plans on Thursday, January 15, 2026. The Paramount+ Essential (ad-supported) plan will increase by $1 to $8.99 per month, and the Paramount+ Premium (ad-free) plan will rise by $1 to $13.99 per month.
The annual plans will see higher increases, although they will still work out to a discount on a monthly basis. The Essential plan will be $89.99 per year ($7.50/month) and the Premium plan to $139.99 per year ($11.67/month). Those are up from $59.99 annually for Essential and $119.99 annually for Premium.
This slight increase will, however, allow Paramount+ to bring a slate of new premium content to the service,
including UFC fights which will be available to all subscribers and will not require pay-per-view purchase.
The student and military discounts will remain at a 50% discount off the new price.
In addition, Paramount+ will be phasing out the free trial, meaning users will now be charged upon signing up to the service.
The news follows the company, in
reporting its Q3 2025 results in November, saying that its “ongoing investments in Paramount+ are enhancing the value we deliver to consumers. To support this continued investment, we plan to implement price increases in the U.S. early in the first quarter of 2026.”
The company noted that it also recently announced upcoming price increases in Canada and Australia. “These changes will fuel continued reinvestment in the user experience and deliver an even stronger slate of programming for our customers in the year ahead and beyond,” David Ellison, chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Paramount Skydance, said in the Q3 letter to shareholders.
Among recent pacts, Paramount signed a seven-year, $7.7 billion deal with UFC that makes Paramount+ the exclusive rightsholder for the MMA promoter’s events. Ellison also called out Paramount’s
five-year exclusive deal with Matt Stone and Trey Parker, co-creators of
South Park, said to be worth $1.5 billion; according to Ellison’s letter,
South Park was the top subscriber-acquisition driver for Paramount+ in Q3.
The company said that even after the January 2026 price hikes, Paramount+ will remain one of the most competitively priced streaming services in the U.S. The streamer features popular original series such as
Landman and
Tulsa King; franchises like
South Park and
Star Trek; films including
Mission: Impossible and
The Naked Gun; CBS hit shows like
Tracker and
Survivor; and exclusive coverage of sports including Sunday afternoon NFL games and UEFA Champions League.
The looming price increases follow the closing of Skydance Media’s
$8 billion acquisition of Paramount Global in August. The last time prices went up for Paramount+ came in August 2024, when the price of Paramount+ Premium increased by $1, to $12.99 per month, and the Paramount+ Essential plan climbed by $2, to $7.99 per month. This past summer, the company changed the name of the higher-priced tier from Paramount+ With Showtime to Paramount+ Premium.
In 2026, Paramount expects to make incremental programming investments of more than $1.5 billion, which includes its direct-to-consumer investments in the UFC, Paramount+ originals and third-party catalog licensing as well as the ramp-up in its film slate to 15 movies annually, per Ellison’s letter.
Paramount+ ended September 2025 with 79.1 million subscribers, up from 77.7 million three months earlier.
For the third quarter of 2025, revenue in Paramount’s direct-to-consumer business increased by 17% year-over-year, to $2.17 billion, driven by a 24% increase in Paramount+ revenue, to $1.04 billion. The DTC segment’s adjusted operating income was $105 million (12% margin) and $235 million (18% margin) in the pre-close and post-close periods, respectively. “Our results reflect continued revenue growth and efficiency for Paramount+ in addition to a content expense benefit from reductions in content assets resulting from the change in accounting basis resulting from the merger,” Paramount Skydance said.
Starting in Q4 2025, the company said, it will count only paid Paramount+ subscribers in its reported figures instead of including those on free trials, as it does currently. At the end of Q3, free trial subscribers totaled 1.2 million.
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Originally published: December 17, 2025.
