CAMBRIDGE, England—Faced with rising inflation and worries that the economy is weakening, consumers are prioritizing their spending on popular streaming services, with a third of U.S. streamers (34%) reporting that they have cut back on other household expenses specifically to keep paying for their streaming subscriptions.
The newly released “Streaming Squeeze” research report from Bango, a subscriptions bundling marketplace, examines how streaming fans are coping with rising costs. Bango also found that inflation continues to squeeze household budgets. Nearly two-thirds (63%) of Americans with streaming subscriptions reported they can’t afford all the services they want, Bango said, with more than half (55%) admitting their streaming bills are higher than they’d like.
“Subscribers refuse to give up on streaming — they just keep spending,” Bango CEO Paul Larbey said. “But they’re rebalancing that spend to protect the streamers they love the most. They'll cut back elsewhere, tolerate ads if the deal’s right, and move up or down tiers when new options land. But a key point is that for most people, Netflix is a non-negotiable,” i.e., a service they won’t cancel.
As a result, many now rotate, move up and down ad tiers or bundle subscriptions, doing whatever it takes to stay subscribed and keep their favorite streaming services, the researcher reported.
Though many consumers are moving to ad-supported tiers to help reduce costs, they have mixed feelings about the trade-off between saving money and getting bombarded by ads during their limited leisure time.
The majority of consumers (69%) say paid subscription services should never show ads, yet 60% say they would accept even more ads on their streaming in exchange for a bigger discount.
Despite this ambivalence, ad tiering is helping to expand the market in both directions: When cheaper ad-supported plans launch, 42% downgrade to them and 39% upgrade to avoid them, the study found.
Younger subscribers are even more likely to use tiers as a “safety valve”, the researchers reported. For example, half of Gen Z consumers (47%) report starting a subscription when an ad-supported option became available, compared with only one-quarter of baby boomers.
The study also found that even as budgets tighten, consumers keep spending on at least one “Forever Subscription” they say they’ll never cancel. Netflix dominates that leaderboard (60%) in that category, followed by Prime Video (31%) and Hulu (24%).
Looking at different age brackets, Netflix also secures cross-generational appeal, which highlights its universal lure. In contrast, Prime skews older, with 45% of boomers considering it as a “forever subscription”—more than any other generation. At the other end of the scale, Disney+ resonates with younger audiences (28% of Gen Z treat it as a forever subscription), Bango reported.
The study also highlighted the growing importance of bundles. More than two-thirds of subscribers (68%) have taken an indirect subscription—buying via a bundle or third-party channel. These bundled buyers report meaningful monthly savings, and typically hold more subscriptions overall—because when costs come down and administration gets simpler, subscribers keep more of what they love.
Among streaming subscribers who report savings, the average monthly savings is $16.32, with roughly half saying they save $15 to $24 or more each month. Given these benefits, 22% of streaming subscribers have switched to a bundle deal in the past six months—where services are offered indirectly through a telecom or TV provider, included as a perk with other services, or bundled together via a platform like Prime Video. This momentum is even stronger among younger adults, with a third (32%) of Gen Z signing up for bundles in the same time period.
To find out more about today’s streaming and subscription habits, download Bango’s full Streaming Squeeze report here.
For more information, visit www.bango.com
