The Netgem Pleio, the first standalone Freely box, has just had its biggest price rise since launch. It now costs £129, up from £99, and the new price is already live.
That’s £30 more, a 30% jump, and the most the Pleio has ever cost. Only six months ago, Netgem told us £99 was its permanent price, and that it would absorb rising memory costs rather than pass them on to buyers.
In its defence, Netgem isn’t the only one putting prices up this year – far from it. But the rise still leaves the Pleio in an awkward spot.
The rival Manhattan Aero is holding its price for the time being, Amazon is currently flagging the Pleio’s new price as too high, and some viewers will now find Netgem’s own platform cheaper through a Vodafone contract.
What Is The Pleio?
Freely is Everyone TV’s streaming platform (Everyone TV also runs Freeview and Freesat), and it’s designed to eventually replace both. Instead of an aerial or a satellite dish, it streams live channels from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, 5 and 60-plus others over your broadband, in a single TV guide with seven days of catch-up built in.
At first, the only way to get Freely was to buy a new smart TV. The Pleio changed that in November 2025, as the first standalone Freely box: a tiny puck that plugs into any TV’s HDMI port.
On top of Freely, it runs Android TV 14 with the full Google Play Store, so Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max, NOW and the rest live on the same device. You also get a wireless gamepad and 12 months of Pleio Extra, Netgem’s subscription for 300-plus cloud games and 150-plus extra channels.
When I reviewed the Pleio, I gave it 4 out of 5. It’s a capable box, with some rough edges – the interface is a bit fragmented, and it can’t record anything.
What’s Changed – And What Hasn’t
Only the device price is going up. The Pleio now costs £129 on Amazon and on Netgem’s own website, and you still get the gamepad and a year of Pleio Extra in the box.
Once that year is up, Pleio Extra still costs £9.99 a month, for new and existing customers alike. Freely itself stays free, whether you pay for Pleio Extra or not.
So if you already own a Pleio, none of this affects you. You paid your £99, and the box becomes fully yours at the end of the first year. If you bought one at launch last November, that free year of Pleio Extra is about to run out, so the £9.99 decision is coming up soon.
Whatever Happened To The “Permanent” £99?
If you’ve followed the Pleio since launch, you’ll know its price has been all over the place.
It launched at £99 and jumped to £119.88 in January. It dropped to £109.89 as the Aero arrived, fell to £99 for a Valentine’s Day offer, then went back up again. For a couple of months after that, it kept bouncing between £99 and £109.89.
In April, Netgem drew a line under it all and made £99 the Pleio’s permanent price. At the time, Sylvain Thevenot, Netgem UK’s managing director, told us rising memory prices were “a significant factor for everyone in the industry”, but that “we have made the strategic decision to absorb these costs rather than passing them on to the consumer.”
Netgem now says the rise comes down to steep global increases in wholesale memory prices.
The company points to TrendForce market data showing that spot prices for standard 8Gb DDR4 memory chips have gone up by more than 250% over the past year, and each Pleio uses several of them, which has pushed its manufacturing costs up significantly.
Cord Busters understands Netgem had hoped to keep the Pleio at £99, that it’s still covering part of the increase itself, and that it sees the rise as unavoidable – for Netgem, and for the rest of the industry.
Everyone’s Putting Prices Up
On that last point, the evidence is hard to argue with.
The memory squeeze comes from the global rush to build AI data centres, which need enormous quantities of the same chips that go into TV boxes, streaming sticks and pretty much every other gadget. It’s been pushing hardware prices up all year.
Manhattan was one of the first to blink, raising the Aero from £69.99 to £89.99 in April, and its T4-R Freeview recorder the same week.
Amazon went much further. On September 3, it raised Fire TV prices by 30% to 50%, blaming memory and storage costs. The Fire TV Stick HD went from £39.99 to £59.99, the 4K Max from £69.99 to £99.99, and the Cube from £139.99 to £199.99.
Even the new Fire TV Stick 4K, which launched two weeks ago, costs £69.99 here, against $59.99 in the US.
Netgem also points to Apple, and it’s a fair example. Apple raised the price of its old Apple TV 4K to £199 earlier this year over the same memory costs, and the new Apple TV 4K costs £299, twice what the previous model cost at launch. Apple’s new HomeView smart home display is £299 too.
A £129 Freely box is still a tough sell. But in a year when a basic HD Firestick costs £59.99, Netgem is hardly the odd one out.
Amazon Isn’t Helping
Netgem has a more immediate problem, and it’s one it has run into before.
Because the price went up so sharply, so quickly, Amazon has removed the usual Buy button from the Pleio’s product page (as of this writing).
In its place there’s a “High price” label, and a message that reads: “Amazon strives to offer customers high quality pricing. We have recently seen better prices on Amazon or from other retailers for this product.”
You can still buy it. Tap “See All Buying Options” and the Pleio is there at £129, sold by Netgem and dispatched by Amazon. Plenty of shoppers won’t get that far, though.
Exactly the same thing happened in January, the last time the Pleio’s price went up. Amazon flagged it as “Price higher than typical” and hid the standard buy buttons until the price came down again.
Amazon has been the Pleio’s main shop window since launch, so this is likely to cost Netgem sales until it gets sorted.
Pleio vs Aero: The Gap Is Back To £39
When Manhattan put the price of the Aero Freely box up to £89.99 in April and Netgem cut the Pleio to £99, the gap between the two shrank to just £9. At that point, the Pleio’s extras made it a very close call.
Now the gap is £39. And Manhattan has confirmed to Cord Busters that the Aero will stay at £89.99, at least until Christmas.
The Aero has been chipping away at the Pleio’s advantages, too. It got HBO Max in June (which is also where TNT Sports now streams), and in September it added cloud gaming through Blacknut. That’s a paid subscription, mind, and there’s no gamepad in the box.
The Aero also has an Ethernet port, which the WiFi-only Pleio lacks, and none of its core features need a subscription.
The Pleio still wins on apps. Sky’s NOW, Paramount+ and Apple TV are still missing from the Aero, and the Pleio’s Google Play Store has all three. If you want to game, it’s also the only one with a gamepad and a year of games included.
But if you just want Freely and the big streaming apps, the Aero is now the much easier recommendation.
The Vodafone Twist
The last comparison is a slightly awkward one for Netgem, because the rival is Netgem.
The new Vodafone TV service, which launched earlier this month, runs on Netgem’s platform. It’s the same software that powers the Pleio, with Freely built in, plus the same 150-plus extra channels and 300-plus cloud games.
When we broke down Vodafone’s prices, we used the £99 Pleio as our yardstick. Buy a Pleio and add Netflix and HBO Max (both with adverts) yourself, and it came to £434.52 over two years.
That was slightly less than Vodafone TV Essential, which includes both and costs £444 over its 24-month contract.
At £129, that flips. The same do-it-yourself setup now costs £464.52, which is £20.52 more than Vodafone’s bundle. If you keep paying for Pleio Extra in the second year, it’s £584.40.
Vodafone TV has plenty of strings attached, of course. You need a Vodafone broadband or mobile plan, you’re locked in for 24 months, the price goes up every April, and there’s no gamepad. With a Pleio, you can cancel Netflix or HBO Max the day you finish a show.
Still, £30 is enough to change the maths. Six months ago, the Pleio was clearly the cheaper way onto Netgem’s platform, for anyone who wanted Netflix and HBO Max too. Now, if you’re happy to sign up with Vodafone, it isn’t.
Mafia II And A New Cinema Store
Netgem does have two additions on the way, which may soften the blow a little.
Mafia II is coming to the Pleio’s cloud gaming service shortly. The first game, Mafia: Definitive Edition, arrived in February and quickly became the most played game on the Pleio, so the sequel should go down well.
Netgem is also building a new cinema-focused store into the Pleio’s interface, which it says will come with vouchers and promotions for customers. We don’t have more details yet, including which films it will carry or what they’ll cost.
Is The Pleio Still Worth It At £129?
That depends more than ever on whether you’ll use the extras.
If your household will actually pick up the gamepad and play the cloud games, £129 still buys a lot. You get the box, the controller and a year of Pleio Extra, which would cost £119.88 on its own, plus the widest app selection of any Freely box.
If you just want Freely, though, an extra £39 over the Aero is hard to justify. The Aero is easier to find your way around, has an Ethernet port, and now has HBO Max and a (paid) gaming option of its own.
Netgem’s bigger problem is the timing. It’s heading into Black Friday with a sudden £30 rise, while its main rival has promised to hold its price (for now, at least).
If you’ve had your eye on a Pleio, it may be worth waiting to see whether the price drops for Black Friday.
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