While streaming services remain one of the most common ways for people to find entertainment digitally, keeping up with them all can get costly.
With so many different streaming platforms offering so many great shows, finding innovative ways to cut the overall cost of keeping up with those shows can be very useful. Content-on-demand and streaming services have led a revolution in the way that people consume content.
No longer are we slaves to the time schedules that network and cable television executives create; no longer do you need to rush home to catch the next episode of your favorite show or lose any hope of keeping up with the characters.
Now, you can watch things when it’s convenient for you, and there is a much greater range of interesting things to watch.
But all of this convenience isn’t free, and the price of keeping multiple streaming subscriptions going at the same time can get prohibitive.
Almost every streaming service has its own flagship shows and movies that often have great writing, big actors and excellent production values, but having seven or more different streaming subscriptions can be a real financial drain.
Each streaming service is, on its own, relatively affordable, but the more you have, the higher that price climbs. Thankfully, you don’t have to sell your kidneys on the black market to pay for your streaming services.
There is a range of totally practical things that anyone can do to reduce the cost of streaming services without missing out on any big shows or movies.
From rotating which service you are subscribed to, to doing surveys for money in your spare time and putting the extra towards your streaming services bill, or even just downgrading to the ad-supported viewing option to save some cash, let’s take a closer look at some of the techniques people use to bring down that streaming bill.
Rotate Between Different Services
One of the most popular methods that people have started using to save money on their streaming bill is to simply not subscribe to all of the different services at the same time.
By keeping up with what shows and movies you are interested in, and what their release times are, you can rotate subscriptions in and out according to which service has something fresh coming out that you care about.
While the whole premise of this article is that you want to save money without missing out, and this suggestion seems to imply that you will be missing out for a time, that isn’t really the case.
Let’s be real, if you have subscriptions to five or six different streaming services, are you really using them all at the same time?
It’s far more likely that there will be one or maybe two that have shows and movies that you are interested in, and that the others are just sitting idle.
Many streaming services follow the model of releasing content in batches as well. So if you really want to save, you can wait until all the content you want is there, then subscribe and binge-watch it quickly, then unsubscribe once you’ve consumed all you are interested in.
Free-to-Air Streaming Platforms Are Totally Valid
While all of the big-name stream platforms require subscription, plenty of countries have free-to-air public broadcast streaming services available as well.
These platforms might not have the same range or quality of content that the premium services do, but they can still provide you with hours upon hours of entertainment.
It’s mostly down to what sort of shows and movies you are interested in watching, and how tolerant you are of ad-supported viewing.
If free-to-air streaming services in your region have quality shows on them that you are interested in, why pay for a subscription to another service?
Downgrade to Ad-Supported Plans
While the cost of subscribing to streaming services has undeniably gone up, there are also a range of services that are offering cheaper budget plans that incorporate advertising to keep costs lower.
If you don’t mind having advertising break up the content you are watching, these tiers of subscription are perfect to save a little money without missing out on any content.
Completing Surveys in Your Free Time Can Net Extra Cash
One method that is becoming increasingly popular for reducing the overall cost of paying for streaming content doesn’t actually involve reducing the cost. Instead, it is focused on earning a little bit of extra money to help pay for your digital entertainment.
There are online survey platforms that let you complete advertising surveys for different products and brands, allowing you to redeem gift cards as a reward. These gift cards can be for all sorts of products, with some of them even allowing you to directly add them to your PayPal wallet.
This means that by spending a little bit of your free time completing surveys, you can earn a bit of extra cash that can help defray the cost of your streaming subscription.
Doing surveys on platforms like BrandBee isn’t going to help you pay for a house, but they can easily help you take a few dollars off a month from your streaming costs.
Final Thoughts
While it might feel like keeping up with the content on all of the different streaming services is an expensive proposition, it doesn’t have to be.
First of all, only subscribing to services while you are actually using them and watching content can help you save a bunch, and using surveys to earn extra money or downgrading to ad-supported viewing are also great choices to cut the costs associated with streaming.
