How much does YouTube cost?

YouTube publishes 2 tiers, from Free for Free up to $11.99/month for YouTube Premium. The entry tier costs nothing.

What is the difference between Free and YouTube Premium on YouTube?

YouTube Premium costs $11.99/month against Free, and adds ad-free videos, background play, youtube music included, offline downloads.

Which entertainment tools can I use without paying?

5 of the 8 entertainment tools listed alongside YouTube have a free tier: StubHub, The Roku Channel, mpv, Infuse, IINA.

What am I actually paying for with YouTube?

The record lists 18 features across 4 areas: other, integrations, security, platform. In practice it is brought in for video sharing, content marketing, education.

Does YouTube charge per user?

The record carries a price and a billing period for each of its 2 tiers, but not the unit that price is charged in. Per-seat and flat-rate billing look identical in this data, so check the vendor's page before budgeting for a team.

Are these YouTube prices current?

They are what the catalogue entry holds, refreshed when the entry is. Vendors change pricing without notice and nobody at Softwr re-verifies each tier by hand, so treat this as a structured summary and the vendor's own pricing page as the authority.

What should I compare YouTube against before paying?

The closest entertainment tools in this directory are Philo, StubHub, The Roku Channel, mpv. Each has a side-by-side comparison with YouTube covering price, platforms and features.

Entertainment · pricing

YouTube pricing

YouTube publishes 2 tiers. Below is each one, what it adds over the tier beneath it, and where the ladder stops being worth climbing for most people.

As of 30 August 2026, YouTube pricing is free, then $11.99/month across 2 published tiers. Figures are the vendor's list prices as recorded on this page's last check; the vendor's site is the final word.

Entry price: Free, then $11.99/month
Model: Freemium
Tiers: 2
Free tier: Yes

YouTube plans, side by side

Every published tier in ascending order of price, with the number of features each one lists. An absence here means the record does not itemise it, not that the tier lacks it.

YouTube pricing tiers
Plan	Price	Features listed	Step up from the tier below
Free	Free	4	Entry tier
YouTube Premium	$11.99/month	4	+$11.99/month, 4 more features

What each tier adds

The set difference between each tier's feature list and the one beneath it. Where a tier lists nothing new, the vendor has either stopped repeating the inherited list or the tier raises limits rather than adding capability, the record does not distinguish the two, so this page does not either.

Free

The entry tier. It covers unlimited video watching, basic video uploads, community features, ad-supported.

YouTube Premium

$11.99/month

Over Free, this tier adds:

Ad-free videos
Background play
YouTube Music included
Offline downloads

Where YouTube stops being free

Free, Free

Unlimited video watching
Basic video uploads
Community features
Ad-supported

YouTube Premium, $11.99/month

The first thing you pay for:

Ad-free videos
Background play
YouTube Music included
Offline downloads

What the product covers

The full YouTube feature record, grouped as the catalogue groups it. This is the product as a whole; the record does not map every feature onto a specific tier.

Other

Video hosting
Live streaming
Content discovery
Creator tools
Analytics

Integrations

Google services
Social media
Creator tools
Third-party apps

Security

Content ID
Community guidelines
Privacy controls
Parental controls

Platform

Web support
Ios support
Android support
Smart-tv support
Gaming-consoles support

People bring YouTube in for video sharing, content marketing, education, entertainment, live streaming. If that is not the job you are buying for, the alternatives to YouTube are worth a look before you commit to a tier.

How that compares in Entertainment

Across the 4 entertainment tools in this directory that publish a starting price, the median entry point is $53.5/month. YouTube starts at $11.99/month, which puts it below the middle of its category.

YouTube entry price against other Entertainment tools
Tool	Entry price	Model	Rated	Head to head
YouTube (this page)	Free, then $11.99/month	freemium	-
Philo	$33/month	Per household per month, single plan	-	vs YouTube
StubHub	Free	Free to browse, two sided transaction fees on buyers and sellers	-	vs YouTube
The Roku Channel	Free	Free, ad-supported; individual paid channel add-ons	-	vs YouTube
mpv	Free	Open source, no licence fee	-	vs YouTube
Infuse	Free, then $1.99/month	Per user per month	-	vs YouTube
fuboTV	$73.99/month	Per household per month, tiered plans	-	vs YouTube

Ratings are aggregated from third-party sources and imported with each catalogue entry, they are not reviews hosted on Softwr. How each figure is used is set out on the YouTube badges page.

Before you pay for YouTube

Three things this page cannot tell you, and all three change the bill. The record carries a price and a billing period but not the unit - per-seat and flat-rate pricing are indistinguishable in this data, so a five-person team may be looking at five times the figure above. It carries no annual rate, so any discount for paying yearly is not something this page can quote. And it carries no trial length.

What it can tell you is the shape of the ladder: 2 tiers between Free and $11.99/month, with the jump itemised above. Because there is a free tier, the cheapest way to answer the rest is to use it before paying anything.

YouTube runs on web, ios, android, smart-tv, gaming-consoles, and is published by Google LLC of San Bruno, California, USA. The full record is on the YouTube review, and the rest of the category is under best entertainment tools.

YouTube pricing on the vendor's own site

YouTube pricing questions

How much does YouTube cost?: YouTube publishes 2 tiers, from Free for Free up to $11.99/month for YouTube Premium. The entry tier costs nothing.
Does YouTube have a free plan?: Yes. The Free tier costs nothing and covers unlimited video watching, basic video uploads, community features. Paying starts at $11.99/month for YouTube Premium.
What is the difference between Free and YouTube Premium on YouTube?: YouTube Premium costs $11.99/month against Free, and adds ad-free videos, background play, youtube music included, offline downloads.
Is YouTube expensive for a entertainment tool?: It starts below the middle of its category. Across the 4 entertainment tools in this directory that publish a starting price, the median entry point is $53.5/month; YouTube starts at $11.99/month.
Which entertainment tools can I use without paying?: 5 of the 8 entertainment tools listed alongside YouTube have a free tier: StubHub, The Roku Channel, mpv, Infuse, IINA.
What am I actually paying for with YouTube?: The record lists 18 features across 4 areas: other, integrations, security, platform. In practice it is brought in for video sharing, content marketing, education.
Does YouTube charge per user?: The record carries a price and a billing period for each of its 2 tiers, but not the unit that price is charged in. Per-seat and flat-rate billing look identical in this data, so check the vendor's page before budgeting for a team.
Are these YouTube prices current?: They are what the catalogue entry holds, refreshed when the entry is. Vendors change pricing without notice and nobody at Softwr re-verifies each tier by hand, so treat this as a structured summary and the vendor's own pricing page as the authority.
What should I compare YouTube against before paying?: The closest entertainment tools in this directory are Philo, StubHub, The Roku Channel, mpv. Each has a side-by-side comparison with YouTube covering price, platforms and features.