The honest answer depends on what you actually watch — not on what each service costs. Start with your real number, then use the rule below.
Tap the ones you pay for. Typical 2026 ad-free rates — close enough for the maths.
Every service looks cheap on its own. That is the trap — nobody cancels a $12 subscription, and five of them is $720 a year. The number that actually tells you something is what you pay divided by the hours you watched.
Run it for last month. A service you watched 20 hours on costs you well under a dollar an hour and is obviously worth keeping. A service you watched two hours on costs you six dollars an hour — more than renting the same two films outright. Above roughly $3 an hour, you are paying a premium for the convenience of not deciding.
The service to cancel is almost never the most expensive one. It is the one with the fewest hours against it.
Streaming is month to month. There is no cancellation fee, no contract, and your profiles, watchlists and history are kept for a long time after you leave. That changes the maths completely.
If a show you follow returns in six months, the choice is not "cancel forever or pay forever". It is pay for one month when it returns, or pay for six while you wait. On a $19.99 service that is the difference between $20 and $120 for exactly the same viewing.
The trick is remembering to come back. That is the part people get wrong — they cancel, forget the show returned, and miss it entirely. Which is the whole reason to track what you watch somewhere that will tell you.
| Service | Cost | What it is good for |
|---|---|---|
| Tubi | Free with ads | Deep film catalogue, a lot of network TV |
| Pluto TV | Free with ads | Live channels and full series runs |
| The Roku Channel | Free with ads | Films and originals, no Roku device needed |
| Hoopla | Free with a library card | Films, no ads, monthly borrow limit |
| Kanopy | Free with a library card | Indie, classics, documentaries |
Help Me Binge checks your list against the free ad-supported ones automatically and flags what you can watch without paying. See what is free right now →
Doing this by hand once a year is fine. Doing it every month is the bit nobody keeps up. Add what you watch to Help Me Binge and it works out the cost per hour for each service, flags the ones you have stopped opening, tells you when a service has nothing left for you, and lets you know when a new season makes it worth coming back.
It is free, there is no paid tier, and you do not need to sign up to start.