Vodafone TV Is Here From £10 – A Freely Box To Rival Sky

Britain has a brand-new TV service and a new competitor to Sky, Virgin Media, and EE TV. Vodafone TV launched today, and we can now reveal what it costs.

Prices start at £10 a month. For that, you get a small streaming box with Freely built in – the free service that streams live channels from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, 5 and more over broadband, with no aerial or satellite dish – plus extra channels, cloud games and apps. Step up a tier, and Netflix and HBO Max come included too.

On paper, it’s a tidy package. But there are strings attached, and the monthly price isn’t the whole story.

So is it actually a good deal? Below, we break down every package and price rise, how Vodafone TV stacks up against the competition, and how it compares to buying the pieces yourself.

What Is Vodafone TV?

When Vodafone announced the service last month, it held back the one detail that mattered most: the price.

Vodafone TV is built around a small plug-in box Vodafone calls the TV Hub. It runs Android TV and supports 4K, Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos.

Freely, run by the same people behind Freeview, supplies the main live channels and seven days of catch-up. On top of that, Vodafone counts more than 150 extra channels, which are FAST channels (free, ad-supported streaming channels), for a total of “200+ live channels”.

There are also more than 300 cloud games, the Google Play Store for adding your own apps, an AI-powered search, and a companion app for watching on your phone.

If that list sounds familiar, there’s a good reason. Vodafone didn’t build the platform – Netgem did, and Netgem also makes the Pleio Freely box.

The extra channels and the 300-plus games are very much the Pleio’s party tricks, so it’s no surprise that the Pleio ends up being the most useful yardstick for Vodafone’s prices.

One difference: the Pleio comes with a gamepad in the box, and Vodafone TV doesn’t. Vodafone confirmed to us that the Hub doesn’t include a controller, but you can pair any Bluetooth controller, or play using the Vodafone TV companion app on your phone.

Vodafone TV Prices

There are three packages, and every one of them includes the TV Hub, Freely, the extra channels, the games, 4K, Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos and the app:

• Vodafone TV (£10 a month): the base package, with no streaming subscriptions included.
• Vodafone TV Essential (£17 a month): adds Netflix Standard with Ads and HBO Max Standard with Ads.
• Vodafone TV Ultimate (£25.50 a month): adds a choice of Disney+ Standard or Amazon Prime on top of Essential. Ultimate is only available with mobile plans.

All three come on a 24-month contract, and that contract includes fixed price rises: every package goes up by £1.50 a month on April 1 each year. So this is what you’ll actually pay over the two years:

Those prices are on top of your Vodafone broadband or mobile plan, and you can’t get Vodafone TV without one. You can sign up directly with Vodafone, or in Currys stores.

If you’re already with Vodafone, you don’t need to wait for your contract to end. Vodafone told us existing customers can add Vodafone TV, subject to eligibility: broadband customers can add it at any time, while mobile customers on eligible plans can upgrade to include it.

However, adding Vodafone TV means signing a new contract (which means restarting your 24 months).

There’s no multi-room package, either. Vodafone told us it doesn’t currently offer a dedicated multi-room option, although customers can take out additional TV Hubs alongside a qualifying broadband or mobile plan. Sky, for comparison, charges £15 a month for its Whole Home add-on.

The Netflix and HBO Max plans are both the ad-supported versions, so expect advert breaks. Netflix Standard with Ads streams in Full HD on two devices at once.

HBO Max Standard with Ads is also Full HD on two devices, and it’s the better of HBO Max’s two ad-supported tiers: it includes the newest Warner Bros. films after their cinema run, plus downloads.

That’s a step up from what Sky and EE TV include. Both give you HBO Max Basic with Ads, which leaves those newer films out (as our HBO Max guide explains).

If you’d rather lose the adverts, you can pay to upgrade, much as Sky lets its customers upgrade the Netflix and HBO Max plans in their packages. With Vodafone, the upgrades go through Subscription+, which is easy to confuse with Vodafone TV itself.

Subscription+ isn’t new, and it isn’t part of the TV packages. It’s Vodafone’s existing way of paying for streaming services through your Vodafone bill, open to its mobile and broadband customers whether they have Vodafone TV or not.

Services such as Netflix, HBO Max, Disney+, DAZN, YouTube Premium and Spotify are available through it on 30-day rolling terms.

That’s also why Vodafone describes the £10 package as “TV standalone”. It doesn’t mean you can get it without a Vodafone plan – it means the TV service without any streaming included.

According to Vodafone’s announcement, customers on that package can add Netflix and HBO Max through Subscription+ instead, month to month.

Vodafone told us that Essential and Ultimate customers can upgrade their included Netflix and HBO Max plans to Premium through Subscription+, paying the difference in cost, which is added to their monthly Vodafone bill.

For reference, Netflix Premium costs £20.99 a month direct, against £7.99 for Standard with Ads, while HBO Max Premium costs £14.99, against £5.99.

Ultimate isn’t really a separate TV package. It’s Vodafone TV Essential combined with one of Vodafone’s existing Entertainment mobile plans, which come with the same choice.

The Disney+ option is Disney+ Standard, which has no adverts, and the Amazon option is a full Amazon Prime membership, which includes Prime Video along with delivery and other perks.

The Price Rises

As mentioned, and like most broadband and mobile providers, Vodafone puts its prices up every year on April 1, by a fixed amount.

Since January 2025, Ofcom has required providers to spell out those rises in pounds and pence when you sign up, rather than tying them to inflation.

For Vodafone TV, the rise is £1.50 a month each year. That sits on top of the rises on the plan underneath it: £2.50 a month for mobile plans, and £3.50 a month for home broadband.

So if you add Vodafone TV Essential to Vodafone’s cheapest SIM-only plan (currently £16 a month for 1GB), you’ll pay £33 a month to start with, £37 from April 2027, and £41 from April 2028.

For comparison, EE TV’s packages go up by £2 a month every March 31, while Sky doesn’t fix its rises in advance. It simply says prices may change during the contract – and Sky Stream customers can’t leave penalty-free mid-contract when they do.

The Comparison That’s Almost Impossible To Make

With Vodafone TV, the comparison that matters most is also the hardest one to make.

Vodafone isn’t selling TV for its own sake. Like BT and Virgin Media, it’s selling TV as a bonus with its broadband – a reason to sign up, a reason to stay, and a way to offer “the complete package”, even at a time when no single package is anywhere close to complete.

There’s no Sky Atlantic here, no live sport, and Disney+ is only included if you take a mobile plan.

That’s where the best deals tend to hide. Right now, for example, Vodafone is offering Vodafone TV Essential “at no extra cost” with its Pro 3 broadband, from £39 a month.

It’s a good deal, although “no extra cost” only lasts until the first price rise. Pro 3 on its own costs £39 a month, rising to £42.50 and then £46. With TV Essential it starts at the same £39, but rises to £44 and then £49 – because, somewhat confusingly, the TV’s £1.50 rise still applies according to Vodafone’s website.

Over a two-year contract starting this month, that works out at around £36 in total for Netflix, HBO Max and the TV Hub. That’s very cheap – if you were going to pay £39 a month for a premium full-fibre plan anyway.

Existing Vodafone mobile customers can shave off even more. Through Vodafone Together, its multi-plan discount, anyone with a pay monthly mobile line gets a further £4 a month off, bringing Pro Broadband with Vodafone TV Essential down to £35 a month.

Pro 3 needs full fibre, and the offer ends on October 28. On Vodafone’s standard full-fibre plan, the bundle is simply both prices added together: broadband from £24, plus £17 for Essential, for £41 a month.

And that’s the problem with comparing broadband bundles. Broadband prices change depending on where you live, what infrastructure reaches your street, which offer is running this month and how well you haggle. A bundle that’s almost free for one household is just another £17 a month for the next.

• Check Vodafone TV Offers

The Comparison We Can Make

What we can compare is Vodafone TV on its own merits – especially if you’re already on, or happy to take, a Vodafone mobile plan, and you’re adding TV on top.

And on that basis, it’s not exactly going to shake up the market.

To be fair to Vodafone, there’s a version of the maths where it comes out ahead. Say you were planning to:

1. Buy a Pleio Freely box for £99.
2. After the first 12 months, keep paying Netgem’s £9.99 a month subscription for the extra channels and the games.
3. Keep Netflix Standard with Ads (£7.99 a month) for two years.
4. Keep HBO Max Standard with Ads (£5.99 a month) for two years.

That adds up to £554.40 over two years. Vodafone TV Essential, starting this month, costs £444 over its 24-month contract, including its price rises. So you’d be getting all of that for around £110 less – minus the gaming controller, which Vodafone doesn’t include.

But take away any one of those four elements, and the picture changes:

These use today’s prices for Netflix, HBO Max and the boxes, and Vodafone’s published price rises. Netflix and HBO Max can go up too (Netflix did just last month) – but when they do, you can cancel the next day.

Look at it monthly and the gap is clear. Netflix and HBO Max with ads cost £13.98 a month if you go direct. Vodafone TV Essential costs £17, and it’s £20 by the final six months.

Then there’s the base £10 package, which is the hardest one to justify. Over 24 months it costs £276 – for Freely, the FAST channels and the games, with no streaming services included.

The Pleio gives you the same platform for £99 upfront, with the first year of extra channels and games included, and £9.99 a month afterwards if you want to keep them. Even if you keep paying for the second year, that’s £218.88 – and it comes with a gamepad, and Freely keeps working if you stop paying.

Vodafone’s Hub is at least yours to keep. Vodafone confirmed there’s no upfront or set-up fee, and that customers own the hardware, so there’s nothing to send back when the contract ends. 

The Manhattan Aero does the Freely part for £89.99, with no subscription at all, and a large number of free ad-supported channels already included.

As for Ultimate, the extra £8.50 a month over Essential buys you either Disney+ Standard, which costs £9.99 a month direct, or Amazon Prime, which costs £8.99. That’s a saving of £1.49 a month on Disney+, or 49p on Prime. And because Ultimate is built on Vodafone’s Entertainment plans, you can’t change your pick until the contract ends.

Isn’t This What We Were Trying To Escape?

Escaping bundles is exactly what cord cutting was about. We wanted to get away from long-term packages that sign you up to services you might not want after a year, so you could subscribe to Netflix when there’s something to watch, drop HBO Max when you’ve finished the show, and pay for what you actually use.

Now the bundles are coming back, with a slightly cheaper price as the bait. Vodafone’s deal only beats doing it yourself if you’re certain you’ll want every part of it for the full two years.

If you’re the kind of viewer who dips in and out of streaming services, the 24-month contract is the price you pay for the discount.

How It Compares With Sky, EE TV And Virgin Media

To its credit, Vodafone keeps things simple. There are three packages, and the one most people will want is just Freely plus Netflix plus HBO Max.

Simplicity is exactly what Vodafone is selling. “Households are dealing with a TV setup that’s become far too complicated – juggling multiple apps, long channel bundles and services they often don’t use,” said Rob Winterschladen, Consumer Director at VodafoneThree.

“Vodafone TV gives customers a smarter alternative: one simple, intuitive experience that brings their favourite entertainment together and helps them cut out unnecessary costs.”

Sky gives you more for your money in many ways. Sky Ultimate TV costs £24 a month on a 24-month contract and includes Sky’s own channels (including Sky Atlantic), Netflix Standard with Ads, Disney+ Standard with Ads, HBO Max Basic with Ads, Hayu and discovery+.

And Sky Stream works with any broadband provider, without needing a Sky broadband or mobile contract underneath it. We went through the numbers in our look at whether Sky is good value.

But you need a flowchart to understand what you’re actually getting. Just try working out which HBO Max films you can watch on the plan Sky includes, and what you’d need to pay to unlock the rest.

EE TV, which is only available with BT or EE broadband, currently offers its Entertainment package (NOW Entertainment plus Netflix Standard with Ads) for £15 a month, but its box can’t record.

Entertainment Plus, which adds HBO Max Basic with Ads through NOW, is £19 a month. Both go up by £2 a month every March 31, as we covered when EE reshuffled its packages last month.

Virgin Media doesn’t sell TV on its own at all. Its cheapest TV bundle, Entertainment, costs £32.99 a month for 24 months including 500Mbps broadband and Netflix Standard with Ads, with a fixed £4 rise each April – and no HBO Max or Disney+ included.

Here are some sample prices (though these tend to change frequently – and often depend on your haggling capability when it comes to broadband companies) –

So, Is Vodafone TV Worth It?

Vodafone TV is easy to understand: Freely, Netflix and HBO Max, in one place, on one bill, with one company to call when something goes wrong.

Whether that’s worth it is your call. If you’re already with Vodafone, you want Netflix and HBO Max for the next two years anyway, and you like the idea of one box and one bill, Essential is a reasonable deal.

If you can get it free with broadband you were going to buy anyway, it’s a very good one.

But if you’re happy managing a couple of apps and cancelling a subscription when you’re done with it, you can match most of this for less – and keep your freedom to walk away.

• Check Vodafone TV Offers

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