Here’s how much it really costs to watch everything on YouTube TV

Summary

• Most people should choose YouTube TV’s default package or the Spanish Plan.
• It may be worth paying for Entertainment Plus or the NFL Sunday Ticket bundle, depending on your tastes.
• Options like 4K Plus and NFL RedZone are tougher to justify.

While YouTube TV is easily one of the best-known live TV streaming service — if you’re in the US, that is — it’s also potentially confusing, not to mention expensive. On top of an $83 per month base package, there are numerous add-ons, some of which you might consider essential for your viewing habits. In some Spanish-speaking households, for instance, the practical cost could be closer to $100.

Before you plunk down any cash for a new YouTube TV subscription, or upgrade the one you have, here’s what you need to know about the various packages Google offers, excluding individual channels. You could end up deciding that on-demand streaming is more financially viable.

The default YouTube TV package

More than enough for some people

To Google’s credit, YouTube TV’s $83 core subscription does offer a lot. The base package includes six user profiles, unlimited cloud DVR recording and playback, and up to three simultaneous streams per household. Most importantly, there are over 100 channels. That makes it impractical to list them all, but here are some highlights:

• ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox, plus their news and sports channels
• BBC, CNN, and other 24-hour news networks
• Cartoon Network and Comedy Central, including a dedicated Adult Swim channel
• ESPN channels, including college spin-offs
• PBS and PBS Kids
• Disney and Nickelodeon channels
• AMC, Discovery, FX, TBS, Turner Classic Movies, USA Network, and other cable standards
• NBA TV and NFL Network
• Univision, Telemundo, and UniMás for Spanish-language viewers

The major gaps here are in movies and Spanish channels. That’s because many “premium” channels are missing, such as HBO, along with more specialized Spanish networks.

Depending on your favorite sports, you may also be missing live coverage of some games.

YouTube TV + NFL Sunday Ticket

If the main reason you want live TV at all is football (in the American sense), you can get the base package bundled with NFL Sunday Ticket. That adds an extra $378 per year, spread over four monthly payments, but the advantage is that you can almost always watch NFL games live, whether through Sunday Ticket or YouTube’s default channels.

I say “most” because while the bundle covers both locally- and nationally-televised games, Sunday Ticket is limited to out-of-market match-ups, and digital-only games are completely excluded. There’s still a chance that you’ll miss some events, probably anything that’s blacked out locally to force stadium attendance.

4K Plus

For travelers and cinephiles

It might shock a few people, but the base package doesn’t include 4K content of any kind — you’ll be watching in 1080p resolution at best. Paying $10 per month upgrades some content to 4K, but not all of it, since some channels don’t broadcast in that resolution anyway.

In fact, the main reason to pay for 4K Plus is probably offline DVR viewing. Without it, you can only view recordings when you have internet access, which is obviously a problem if you’re trying to catch up with a show mid-flight, or otherwise away from civilization. The only other benefit of the package is unlimited simultaneous streams in your home, which is unnecessary unless you’ve got a large family of certified TV addicts.

Entertainment Plus

For movies and prestige shows

This is the one add-on I’d consider myself. Why? It includes Max, Starz, and Paramount+ (with Showtime) for $30 per month. It’s not cheap, but you’ll pay as much or more for those services separately.

Max is home to a lot of Warner-distributed movies, as well as prestige shows from HBO, like The Righteous Gemstones, and House of the Dragon. Paramount+ is probably best known for Yellowstone and South Park, but combined with Showtime it includes other content that’s hard or impossible to find streaming elsewhere, such as Twin Peaks: The Return.

Starz does have original shows, but it’s probably best used as a way of filling in gaps in your movie library. As of this writing, for instance, you can watch titles like Jurassic Park and Spider-Man: No Way Home.

NFL RedZone with Sports Plus

For very particular diehards

If you’re not willing to pay for NFL Sunday Ticket, this package focuses on RedZone only at a price of $11 per month. The channel provides coverage of every Sunday NFL game, with the catch that you’re getting “whip around” coverage of what’s airing on CBS and Fox. It can be redundant with those networks, in other words, and if you’re only interested in a specific game, you may miss some of it. Indeed, when there’s only one game left to go for the day, expect RedZone to cut to highlights to encourage people to switch to CBS, Fox, or Sunday Ticket.

The Sports Plus part of the package includes these channels:

• beIN Sports/beIN Sports XTRA
• Billiard TV
• FanDuel TV
• Fight Network
• FOX Soccer Plus
• Impact Wrestling
• MAVTV Motorsports
• Outside
• Overtime
• PlayersTV
• PokerGO+
• SportsGrid
• Stadium
• Tennis Channel
• VSiN

The Spanish Plan and Spanish Plus

Cut to the chase

The Spanish Plus add-on includes over 25 additional Spanish channels for $15 per month, focusing on content like telenovelas and soccer. Google is oddly reluctant to list every channel, but a couple of examples are the Spanish versions of ESPN and Fox Sports.

If your household doesn’t care about English TV at all, Google sells an alternate base package called the Spanish Plan. This is just $35 per month instead of $83, but limited to Spanish Plus content as well as Univision, Telemundo, and UniMás.

Which packages are worth paying for?

Don’t get boxed in by FOMO

Most people should stick with the default package. $83 per month is already pretty expensive as streaming goes, and you’ll get plenty of TV content spanning news, comedy, drama, education, and sports. For movies and “prestige” shows, it’s probably best to combine YouTube TV with on-demand services like Max and Netflix instead, so you’re only paying for what you care about. Spanish speakers can cut costs dramatically by choosing the $35 Spanish Plan.

Most people should stick with the default base package or the Spanish Plan.

It may be worth paying for Entertainment Plus if you’re already interested in Max, Paramount+, and Showtime, since you can merge all of those services into one place. Likewise, hardcore football fans may want the NFL Sunday Ticket bundle, since Sunday Ticket can be even more expensive elsewhere.

The packages that are hardest to justify are 4K Plus, Spanish Plus, and NFL RedZone with Sports Plus. You may want 4K Plus for offline caching, but for maximum quality, you’ll get more reliable 4K HDR support (as well as Dolby Atmos) from on-demand services. Spanish Plus is probably overkill unless someone in your home is fully bilingual, and RedZone/Sports Plus may be too niche, or redundant with Sunday Ticket. As a rule, you should leave these add-ons by the wayside.