Peacock Raises Prices, Adds Cheaper Tier with Less Content

The NBA don’t come cheap. With the new season arriving on Peacock this fall, the streamer just raised prices for all subscribers not locked into an annual plan by $3/month. Ad-supported Peacock is now $10.99/month, while the ad-free plan with live NBC is $16.99.

Annual subscriptions rise to $109.99/year for Premium (with ads) and $169.99/year for Premium Plus (without). 

The prices go up July 23 for new customers and August 22 for existing customers.

To try to stop everyone from jumping ship, Peacock is also rolling out Peacock Select for $7.99/month or $79.99/year. That plan will have current seasons of NBC and Bravo shows, along with some library programming.

Our Take

Peacock has never been a streaming service worth paying for. “The Traitors” is fun and some of the library content is nice, but Peacock originals don’t come along often enough and none of them has broken through to the popular conversation.

If you love the NBA, Peacock may become a must-have service. After all, NBC and Peacock will split up to 100 regular-season games each season. (More than half will air on NBC on Sunday and Tuesday nights.) On Tuesdays, NBC affiliates in the Eastern and Central time zones will get one game, while affiliates in Pacific and Mountain will get a different game. Peacock will have Monday doubleheaders and will show both Tuesday games.

Peacock will become essential in the playoffs, since the NBA says “at least half” of the approximately 28 games in the first two rounds will air on NBC. That means Peacock will be the exclusive home for many crucial contests.

The only time I’ve really enjoyed Peacock is during the Olympics. The Gold Zone broadcast is an absolute game-changer. But I wouldn’t recommend paying for any version of Peacock unless you have to watch basketball.