10 Best Streaming Apps For Under $5/month
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Things only get worse when streaming apps constantly raise their prices. Netflix and Max are among theworst providers when it comes to frequent price hikes, so even if someone only has a few subscriptions, it adds up quickly. Savvy consumers may need to find ways to get creative so that they still have a variety of shows and films to watch. One answer is to look towardstreaming bundles, like the one between Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+. Then again, it may be time to think outside of the box and look toward some lesser-known services that cost less per month than a Venti Frappuccino at Starbucks.
Discovery+ for $4.99/month
With a subscription to Max, users can watch a ton of great HBO series, like “House of the Dragon” and “The Last of Us.” It even comes with everything one would find on Discovery+, from reality shows to cooking programs. However, prices for a Max subscription start at $9.99 per month, up to $15.99 if one doesn’t want commercials. Anyone who doesn’t care about prestige programming and just wants to binge-watch some “Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives” can get a solo Discovery+ subscription for only $4.99/month.
Discovery unveiled its own streaming app in 2020, and remarkably, the ad-supported price has remained the same since that time. There is an ad-free tier that costs a little more at $8.99/month. Either way, both levels have the same shows from all of the networks that fall under the Discovery umbrella, including HGTV, Food Network, A&E, TLC, Discovery Channel, and so many others. As one can surmise, that means there’s a ton of content to get through, with the Discovery+ homepage declaring, “A subscription includes unlimited access to all 70,000+ episodes, including all-new and exclusive content added every week, all year long.”
Like many streaming services before, Discovery+ also has its own original programming, many of which appear to be spinoffs of popular shows from cable. This includes “90 Day Diaries,” which checks in with couples who appeared on “90 Day Fiancé.” That really only scratches the surface, as many of the shows featured on Discovery+ could keep viewers busy watching for weeks on end.
Magnolia Selects for $4.99/month
Magnolia Pictures is a film production company that’s been around since the early 2000s. Over the decades, the company has released a vast array of titles, usually independent movies and documentaries. It even has some Oscar-nominated fare within its ranks, such as “The Square” and “RBG.” Now, anyone at home can have the entire Magnolia library at their fingertips with a subscription to Magnolia Selects, which costs $4.99/month. There’s even a year-long subscription available, which comes out to $49.99, basically giving you two months for free.
History Vault for $4.99/month
A major selling point of many streaming services is how new films and TV shows become available pretty quickly. A movie released in theaters may become available on streaming after just a couple of months, and TV shows that air on cable originally will have new episodes become available online the day after it premieres. However, the appeal of something like History Vault, which contains programs from History Channel, is its archive of older programming people likely aren’t going to find on cable any time soon.
Granted, History Channel content is also available on Discovery+, which is also $4.99 monthly (even if it comes with ads). However,History’s websitedoes mention that only “select library programming” from History can be found on Discovery+.
IndieFlix for $4.99/month
There are plenty ofgreat streaming services for foreign filmsavailable, from The Criterion Channel to Mubi. IndieFlix certainly needs to be on that list, thanks to its array of films from around the globe. Don’t go thinking everything on there requires subtitles, as the overarching theme for this platform is simply independent cinema, whether that’s drama or horror. Plans are only $4.99 a month, and there’s even a yearly deal for $39.99, which basically provides four months for free.
The service certainly has a unique ethos compared to other streaming platforms. Filmmaker and co-founder of IndieFlix, Scilla Andreen, hosted a Reddit AMA to speak on the inspiration for having a streaming service available that emphasizes lesser-known works of art: “I founded indieflix with my producing partner Carlo Scandiuzzi after we sorted through the three offers from Warner Bros, Artisan, and Lionsgate, that came in for our first digital feature film, Outpatient. We realized then that distribution was broken and that everyone else BUT the filmmaker made money.” IndieFlix started small, but it’s grown to house thousands of titles.
Lifetime Movie Club for $4.99/month
The website advertises hundreds of titles available from throughout Lifetime’s history. Additionally, there’s an emphasis on themed playlists that seemingly gather together movies that share a common theme and make them more easily accessible. For example, Lifetime tends to have a lot of movies based on true stories of women who overcame obstacles or faced some kind of legal trouble, so there is a category for that, with titles like “Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy” and “I Am Elizabeth Smart.”
Similarly to History Vault, some Lifetime movies can be found within Discovery+. However, its site says the same thing about how it might be a more limited selection; therefore, diehard Lifetime fans may appreciate the more comprehensive selection offered on this more niche platform.
Amazon Kids+ for $4.99/month
As a parent, there’s no shame in just needing to distract the kids for an hour while focusing on other matters. Rather than risk their favorite show not currently being on TV, there’s always the magic of streaming apps so that they can watch whatever they want at a moment’s notice. To make sure any children only watch things appropriate for their age range, there’s Amazon Kids+, specifically designed for children between the ages of 3 and 12.
A standard subscription allows kids to watch a wide breadth of content from brands like Nickelodeon and Disney. It even comes with books and games in case kids want a break from watching “Blippi’s Treehouse.” The best part is that the app makes it easy for parents to be in charge of what and how much their kids take in. Various settings are available that can limit how many hours a kid can be on the service or make it so that they can’t use it at all after a certain time. Plus, as opposed to the mainlineAmazon Prime Video getting ads, Amazon Kids+ is still ad-free.
There is one caveat to all this. The monthly cost is $4.99, provided one is an Amazon Prime member, which is an entirely different cost on top of everything else. If one isn’t on Prime, then Amazon Kids+ will cost $7.99/month.
Brown Sugar for $3.99/month
Pam Grier, star of such films as “Foxy Brown” and “Sheba, Baby,” probably gave the best summarization of the Brown Sugar streaming service in a quote published byIndieWirein 2016: “Brown Sugar is just like Netflix, only Blacker.” Indeed, Brown Sugar is all about Black-centered storytelling, from blaxploitation films of the 1970s to modern original series with casts filled with people of color. To top it all off, it’s one of the most affordable streaming apps out there right now at only $3.99 per month.
Some real icons of Black cinema are found on the platform, with tons of movies and shows available that are entirely ad-free. And while it would be natural to have concerns that certain aspects of older blaxploitation films from decades ago would be edited for modern sensibilities, that’s not the case here. Everything is showcased precisely how it was meant to be seen. Grier continued praising the service in her statement: “These movies are entertaining and fun, but they were also empowering to the black community as they depicted African Americans as strong leading characters and heroes for the first time.”
The service has a regular rotation of films and TV series, so certain things may get taken down and added periodically. Unlike other streaming services that raise their prices every year, Brown Sugar was $3.99/month back in 2016, and it continues to be $3.99/month to this day. There’s definitely something to be said of that.
CountryLine+ for $3.99/month
Elton John was actually an early backer for the app, and in 2020, Starlings Entertainment, the production company behind John’s biopic, “Rocketman,” entered into a partnership with the platform. It was fortuitous timing, as 2020 saw the world at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, meaning people really couldn’t see live music. CountryLine became a noteworthy alternative.
In a statement published byPR Newswire, Countryline CEO Simon Walker had this to say: “Country music has the best fans in the world — they are passionate about the music of course, but they also love the whole Nashville lifestyle. We created CountryLine to help fans live their best country lives, and we’re thrilled to team up with Starlings to bring more of that to screen.” From documentaries to podcasts, there are a ton of ways for someone to expand their country music knowledge.
CuriosityStream for $4.99/month
Anyone who watches a good amount of YouTube may have seen their favorite creators advertise for CuriosityStream in the past. It may be easy to simply fast-forward through those parts of the videos, but individuals interested in documentaries may want to pay closer attention next time. CuriosityStream is a reasonably-priced documentary platform that typically goes for $4.99/month, with the monthly cost even being cheaper with an annual plan (or even a lifetime subscription). The streamer also regularly has discounted deals, so it’s always worth double-checking if any discount codes are floating around online or if a YouTuber has a special code to use.
HIDIVE for $4.99/month
HIDIVE offers a fairly solid collection of anime titles, from older classics like “Lupin III” to newer fare that can only be found on this specific platform. While Crunchyroll and even services like Netflix and Hulu tend to focus on anime with broader appeal, like “Attack on Titan” and “One Piece,” such titles are nowhere to be found on HIDIVE. It instead seems to specialize in more obscure shows, which may entice people who have already seen the big names and want to expand their anime acumen even further.
