Peacock Just Raised Prices Again — Here's What Changed

NBCUniversal raised Peacock's prices across every plan on August 18, 2026 — the streaming service's second increase in roughly 13 months, following a similar hike in July 2025. New and returning subscribers are already paying the new rates; existing subscribers get a grace period until their next billing date on or after September 17, 2026.

Like most major streamers, Peacock has leaned heavily on expensive live sports rights — including NFL Sunday Night Football simulcasts and Premier League soccer — alongside its usual slate of NBCUniversal originals and licensed shows. That kind of programming is a major reason streaming price tags keep climbing across the industry, not just at Peacock.

The Full Peacock Price Breakdown

Every tier went up, with the ad-free Premium Plus plan taking the largest jump:

Annual plans moved by the same proportions — Select went from $79.99 to $89.99 a year, Premium from $109.99 to $129.99, and Premium Plus from $169.99 to $199.99.

Peacock Isn't the Only One Raising Prices

2026 has been a heavy year for subscription price increases across the board. YouTube Premium raised US prices in June, with international pricing following in September. Tidal raised its price this same month, and Spotify and Amazon Music both increased earlier in the year. Our guide to Netflix's 2026 price hike covers a similar pattern there. Between streaming, AI tools, and everyday SaaS subscriptions, the average person's recurring monthly spend keeps climbing across several services at once — usually a dollar or two at a time, easy to miss individually.

Industry research backs this up: a 2026 subscription-spending report from Bango found the average American now juggles 5.2 active subscriptions and spends roughly $69 a month across them. When each individual hike is only a dollar or two, it's the accumulation across 5+ services that actually moves the total — not any single price change on its own.

Why One Card Makes Every Hike Invisible

When every subscription runs through the same card, a price increase just blends into a slightly larger monthly total. Most people don't line-by-line audit their statement, so a $2 Peacock increase or a $3 YouTube Premium increase can go unnoticed for months, quietly adding up alongside every other service that did the same thing this year.

Using Separate Virtual Cards to Catch Hikes Instantly

A virtual card per subscription (or per small group of subscriptions) turns this from a guessing game into something checkable at a glance — each card's transaction history shows exactly one service's activity, so a price change shows up as an obvious jump on that specific card instead of getting buried in a combined total. SiraPay's privacy-first onboarding makes this practical to set up — up to 5 free virtual cards can be generated without facial verification or a lengthy review.

• Put Peacock (or your main streaming service) on its own card so any future price change is immediately visible
• Group smaller subscriptions onto a second card rather than mixing everything into one large monthly total
• Check each card's recent activity periodically instead of trying to spot changes in one combined statement
• Cancel or downgrade the moment a hike pushes a service past what it's worth to you, since the cost is now visible on its own

If you're managing several streaming and AI subscriptions together, our guide to virtual cards for ChatGPT and Netflix subscriptions covers the setup in more detail.

Final Thoughts

Peacock's latest hike is part of a much wider pattern this year, not an isolated event — nearly every major streaming and music service has raised prices at least once in 2026. The easiest defense isn't catching every announcement as it happens, it's structuring payments so each subscription's real cost stays visible on its own, the moment it changes.