The Submo Live TV Price Index

The index tracks the published US list price of each provider's entry-level full bundle: the plan a household replacing cable would actually buy. For Hulu that is the ad-supported tier, because it is the one Disney prices and announces; the index follows it consistently rather than switching to the ad-free bundle when that becomes cheaper to quote.

The headline figure is an average, not a total. Nobody subscribes to YouTube TV and Hulu + Live TV at the same time. You buy one of these, so the only honest combined number is what a typical bundle costs. Adding them together would produce a bigger number that describes nobody.

Sling TV is tracked but excluded from the average. Its documented history starts in 2023, and stretching the average back to 2017 with a member that has no sourced price before then would mean either inventing prices or silently changing what the line measures partway along.

Prices are recorded in the month they took effect for new subscribers. Existing subscribers are typically moved one to two billing cycles later, so an individual bill may lag the series by a month or two.

Every price point cites the report that documented the change. When a report states a new price “up from $X”, or dates the previous increase, we treat that article as a record of the earlier point as well. Nothing is interpolated: a service holds its last documented price until the next documented change, which is why the chart steps rather than slopes.

It is based at May 2017, the month Hulu + Live TV launched; YouTube TV had arrived six weeks earlier. That is the first month both existed, and there is no earlier point at which the pair can be compared.

Regional sports fees, broadcast surcharges and equipment charges are not included. Several providers add these on top of the advertised price and vary them by market, so the real bill in a given city is higher than the figure here. This index measures the number on the pricing page.

It also excludes promotional pricing, which is heavy in this category: most of these services discount the first one to three months, and Fubo and DirecTV Stream in particular move prices during carriage disputes. Those temporary numbers are not list prices and are not tracked.

It is US-only, and it contains no Submo user data of any kind. Every number on this page comes from public reporting, and can be checked against the sources below.