Overview
- Peacock increased monthly rates on Aug. 18 for new and returning subscribers to Select $8.99, Premium $12.99, and Premium Plus $19.99, with existing customers charged the new amounts on or after Sept. 17 depending on billing dates.
- The price hike follows Peacock’s first profitable quarter in Q2 2026, when the service posted $189 million in adjusted EBITDA and added about 2 million paid users to reach roughly 48 million subscribers.
- NBCUniversal said the changes will help pay for content and features and the company warned that Peacock’s quarterly profits will keep varying with the timing of big sports and event programming.
- Many consumers are looking for ways to limit the impact, including switching to bundled offers such as Walmart+ or Instacart+, using Comcast/Xfinity bundles, taking cancellation discount offers, or waiting for Peacock’s planned inclusion in YouTube Premium in early 2027.
- The move reflects a wider industry trend of repeated streaming price increases driven in large part by expensive live sports deals such as NBCU’s multibillion-dollar NBA agreement, which analysts say is a key cost pressure that could keep upward pricing pressure in place.