Fubo Drops Its Cheapest Plan

Fubo is one of the most expensive ways to stream live TV. To solidify that reputation, it just killed off its least expensive plan. The change must have happened abruptly because Fubo’s help pages still reference the old plan and price.

For a few months, Fubo offered an “Essential” plan for $84.99. Unlike most Fubo plans, this channel package did not include regional sports networks or the hidden $16 fee Fubo adds on during the checkout process.

The price on Fubo Essential was always a little odd. It was $2 more expensive than Hulu + Live TV or YouTube TV, but it offered far fewer channels. On the sign-up page, you’d see Essential at $84.99 with Pro at $84.99 right next to it. That’s certainly confusing because of the hidden fee that was only revealed on the next page for anyone who chose Pro.

Fubo’s strength has always been its regional sports channels, including the hard-to-find FanDuel Sports Networks. But now that DIRECTV STREAM offers inexpensive access to regional sports networks and Prime Video offers FanDuel, Fubo may have realized it’s better off just rolling with a giant channel package.

More than any other live TV streamer, Fubo loves to experiment with its pricing. We’ve seen the free trial fluctuate between one and seven days. Fubo has tried quarterly pricing. We’ve seen channel packages come and go. They’re always tinkering. And Fubo has been frustrating because of its lack of pricing transparency around the regional sports fee. An additional $16/month is nothing to sneeze at. (DIRECTV STREAM, Hulu + Live TV, and YouTube TV provide upfront, inclusive pricing across all their pages.)

Perhaps to soften the blow, Fubo is now offering $30 off its first month of service.

I’ve used Fubo and I like it quite a bit. The customizable multiview on Apple TV is a great feature every live TV streamer should adopt. But the price is astronomical considering it’s missing key channels like CNN, TNT, truTV, TBS, HGTV, History Channel, MeTV, Discovery Channel, INSP, TLC, Food Network and more. Fubo has dropped more channels than it has added in recent years. Even when it drops channels, the price does not go down.

Since Fubo forced its competitors to abandon their Venu Sports plan and Fubo CEO David Gandler was assigned leadership of Hulu + Live TV, it’s an open question how Fubo will continue to move forward in the streaming landscape to come.