After months of speculation, Paramount+ has finally revealed its new subscription model for UK viewers – and as expected, it brings both improvements and potential price increases to the streaming service.
Starting November 20, subscribers in the UK will have three tiers to choose from, including a new cheaper ad-supported option and a Premium tier that finally brings Ultra HD content to British viewers – albeit at a higher price point.
What is Paramount+?
For those who might not be familiar with the service, Paramount+ launched in the UK back in 2022, offering content from notable production studios, including CBS, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, Paramount Pictures, and SHOWTIME.
While its content library isn’t quite as extensive as that of Netflix or Disney+, Paramount+ has carved out its own niche with exclusive shows like Yellowstone and its spin-offs, the (almost) complete Star Trek catalogue, and blockbuster film franchises like The Transformers and Scream.
Until now, UK subscribers had access to a single tier priced at £6.99/month (or £69.90 annually), which included Full HD streaming on up to two devices simultaneously.
The New Paramount+ Three-Tier Structure
As is popular these days, Paramount is joining the ranks of Netflix, Disney+ and others – with a 3-tier system that includes an ad-supported low-cost tier, a ‘Standard’ HD tier, and a ‘Premium’ 4K tier.
From November 20, here’s how the new subscription options will look in the UK:
Basic with Ads (New)
- £4.99/month
- Full HD streaming quality
- Single device streaming
- Access to the full content library
- Includes adverts
Standard (Previously the only tier)
- £7.99/month (up from £6.99)
- Full HD streaming quality
- Two concurrent streams
- No adverts
Premium (New)
- £10.99/month
- 4K UHD, HDR10, and Dolby Vision support
- Four concurrent streams
- No adverts
In what appears to be preparation for the Premium tier launch, Paramount+ has already begun adding some 4K content to its service in recent weeks.
However, the current selection of 4K titles appears rather limited – though this could expand significantly before the official Premium tier launch.
Another interesting point is what happens to current Sky Cinema subscribers – who get Paramount+ for free: we understand there are no changes planned at this point, which means those customers will remain on the current Paramount+ Standard tier.
The Content Pipeline
Paramount+ is timing this tier restructure with several high-profile content launches.
Marco Nobili, Executive Vice President at Paramount+, highlighted upcoming shows, including LANDMAN (starring Billy Bob Thornton, Demi Moore and Jon Hamm), new seasons of LIONESS with Nicole Kidman and Zoe Salda̱a, and THE AGENCY Рproduced by George Clooney and starring Michael Fassbender and Richard Gere.
According to Paramount, this multi-tier strategy has already proven successful in other markets. “Nearly half of our Direct-To-Consumer sign-ups come from a non-Standard plan in Canada and Australia,” Nobili notes.
Black Friday Deals Soften the Blow
To ease the transition to the new pricing structure, Paramount+ is offering some temporary discounts between November 20 and December 2:
- Premium tier: £5.49/month for the first three months (instead of £10.99)
- Standard tier: £3.99/month for the first three months (instead of £7.99)
After the promotional period ends, subscribers will automatically move to the regular pricing unless they cancel or change their plan.
Is The Premium Tier Worth It?
If you’re an existing Paramount+ subscriber, you’ll soon need to make a choice:
- Stay on the Standard plan and pay an extra pound monthly
- Save money by switching to the ad-supported tier (but lose one concurrent stream)
- Upgrade to Premium for 4K content and more simultaneous streams
While the addition of 4K content is welcome news for quality-conscious viewers, the £10.99 price point puts Paramount+ in direct competition with more established services that offer larger content libraries.
However, Paramount+, even two years after its UK launch, remains a somewhat niche streaming service with a limited selection of content (compared to giants like Netflix, Prime Video and even Disney+).
The ability to stream on four devices simultaneously might make it worthwhile for larger households or shared accounts, however – and so far, we haven’t heard anything about any upcoming password-sharing measures, such as those utilised by Netflix and Disney+.
While the new tiers offer more choice, they also represent another example of streaming services finding ways to increase revenue – either through direct price hikes or by pushing viewers toward more expensive tiers for features that were previously standard.
Of course, if you don’t mind advert breaks – then this represents a chance to pay slightly less – though you won’t be getting any 4K content.
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I was a subscriber to Paramount Plus since the first day it launched and recently ended up having to cancel my subscription and subscribe through Amazon Prime instead, simply because their app is absolutely terrible.
I subscribe to a few streaming services and I’ve never had to cancel due to the app being poor but it’s not just that, I gave them so much leeway and patience for two and half years to fix it time and time again and they never do, it’s much better to get the service through Amazon Prime as you can at least watch it which with the Paramount Plus app itself is very hard to do.
The only problem with Amazon Prime is when you search for a show they often put duplicate episodes together in the same list because they bulk the Amazon Prime purchase available shows and the ones which are part of your Paramount Plus subscription all together in the same results, which means when it gets to an episode that is available to be purchased on the Amazon Prime platform the show stops or plays something completely random; if only they separated these for the Paramount Plus results and Amazon Prime results then it would be no problem.
The Amazon Prime app though where you have a Paramount Plus section that shows when you’ve subscribed to them doesn’t have a search in that specific part, so the only way to find a show you might want to watch that’s on Paramount Plus is to search for it all together, which again brings you all the results shoved together so you can’t play them without it stopping if Amazon also have the show available to purchase on their platform.
However Amazon Prime is really good, very solid when it comes to streaming so is by far the best platform to have your shows and subscriptions through.
If only they would separate the shows when you search so that if you do have a Paramount Plus subscription, it doesn’t bulk them all together wth Amazon Prime’s available purchases as you’d be able to play them completely fine without any of the episodes stopping or randomly playing something once it gets to an episode in the list that’s available to purchase.
This is on the firestick by the way.
£10.99 is laughable for the library they have. The number of 4K titles will be limited and still can’t watch their channels like Comedy Central and MTV.
If im paying that money, i want my worth and frankly, even £7.99 is a steep hill to climb to make it worth it for me.
Streaming is becoming symbolically pricey for not great value!
If you have a 4k tier then everything in it should be 4k, you could end up watching hd but paying for 4k. After all there is no sd on the hd tier.
No yearly discount anymore then? Shame! I’ll give it a miss at them prices.
I read on reasonably good authority that there is a Black Friday offer of £48.99 for the Paramount Plus premium tier. Which if it is true represents a decent saving on what you’d normally be expected to pay.
Cheers for the heads-up. Quite a large jump on last year’s (& the previous year’s) price though. May just dip in once a year for the odd month in future.
mine renews on 22nd November for the year i clicked to cancel it few months after they offered me another year for £35 im hoping they honour it and dont try and shaft me because im 2 days off the deadline it seems
I paid for a year in June will i have to pay extra for the reminder 7 months or will it do what disney did and just auto put on the top tier
My guess is that existing annual subscribers will simply remain on the Standard tier until their year is over, at which point they will need to renew at the updated price (or switch to a different tier).
Its about time they introduced 4K but £10.99 is a bit steep, I will end up dipping in and out as and when Strange New Worlds is showing.