Last year, Nicole Weatherford subscribed to a handful of streaming services, which didn’t seem like that much until she added them up.

“At one point last year, we were spending close to $100 a month,” she said. “It was more than what we wanted to budget for TV expenses.” 

Weatherford, a blogger, influencer and mother of two from Chattanooga, Tennessee who runs the website EverydayThrifty.com, knew that streaming platforms would offer deals during the holiday shopping season. So she canceled all of the streaming subscriptions and her family watched DVDs that had been gathering dust on the shelf. 

Weatherford scored Black Friday promotions for Hulu, Max and Disney+ and now rotates in and out of services like Netflix and Apple TV+ that didn’t offer deals, slashing her streaming budget to $30 a month.

More subscribers are loving, then leaving streaming services

Call it the art of the binge and bail. 

Subscribers love Paramount+ for a month or two then leave it for Starz, strategically canceling streaming services and only subscribing again when there are new seasons of favorite shows or new movies to watch. 

Their goal: Mainline as much content as possible while minimizing monthly subscription costs.

“Oftentimes, we'll binge a show and just want to watch that for a while. When that happens, we almost never watch shows on other streaming platforms yet we still pay the monthly fee,” Weatherford said.

She said that by rotating streaming services every month or two, her family gets more use out of each.

"And I love that there's no penalty for canceling, or resubscribing either when we're ready to come back,” she said. 

Streaming cancellations jump as prices go up

Though streaming platforms don’t release figures on subscriber churn, analysts say more subscribers are canceling services or hopping from one service to another to save money as the streaming industry hikes prices. 

That’s what motivated Roshanda Pratt, a 46-year-old entrepreneur and mother of three from Columbia, South Carolina who is reviewing her family’s streaming budget.

Pratt trails off while naming all of her streaming subscriptions: “Peacock, Disney, Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu… Those are just the ones I can remember" she said. "My husband would say I forgot one. That’s the problem. We just set it and forget it.”

Not for much longer. Fed up with monthly price hikes and account sharing crackdowns, Pratt is paring streaming subscriptions. So far Hulu made the cut but not long-time family favorite Netflix.

Trimming household expenses is No. 1 reason for cancellations

Cutting household expenses is now the No. 1 reason consumers are canceling streaming subscriptions, said Eric Sorensen, senior analyst and director of streaming products at Parks Associates. It used to be the third most common reason, he says.

“Consumers are definitely looking at ways to save on monthly household bills,” said Sorensen, whose firm does market research and consulting. “Entertainment is one of the first things that people cut. You can’t cut the electric bill.” 

In the average household, there’s usually plenty of fat to trim.

Nearly 9 in 10 broadband households – 89% – subscribe to at least one streaming service, over half subscribe to more than four and nearly one-third – 29% – subscribe to more than eight, according to Parks Associates.

“My husband and I are scaling back because it has become so costly,” Pratt said. “Do we really need to have this many choices?”

Confessions of a ‘serial churner’: Stream everything for $15 a month

The silver lining for streaming platforms: Gone today does not mean gone tomorrow. 

Jeff Jennings regularly defects from Netflix, Apple, Max, Disney+ and Hulu.

But he always comes back.

Jennings is a “serial churner,” one of millions of subscribers – about one-quarter of them – who have canceled at least three major streaming subscriptions over the past two years, up from 15% in 2021, according to analytics firm Antenna.

Jennings says his streaming bill is about $15 a month. His secret: He only watches one service at a time. 

For the 57-year-old from Birmingham, Michigan, that meant watching every episode of “Ted Lasso” and “Severance” on Apple TV+, then moving on to a Max subscription where he’s now catching up on all four seasons of “Succession.”

“There's no reason to keep paying $10 bucks a month waiting for (the new season of) a show that hasn’t come out yet. You might as well cancel until it comes back,” Jennings said. “Then you binge watch it and cancel.”

How to save money with the churn method

Track all of your streaming services: Make a list of all the services you subscribe to. 

Plot out what you watch: Track the release dates for your favorite series or the movies you are interested in watching. Resubscribe to services once a season ends or when you have a critical mass of programming to binge.

Set calendar reminders: Weatherford keeps track of streaming services by adding the next billing date to her phone calendar and setting a reminder.  

“If I know that I'm going to take time off from that streaming service, I'll go in and just cancel the billing renewal. Almost every platform lets you finish out the billing cycle you paid for. And when that ends, you'll simply be prompted to sign up again,” she said.

Rotate niche services: Can’t give up Netflix, Hulu or Disney? Give up the small fry. Niche services − classic movies on Criterion or British dramas on BritBox − tend to have fewer offerings, so try subscribing to one or two services at a time.

Look for bundle deals and sales: Instacart+ members get a free Peacock subscription, for instance, and various mobile carriers offer streaming deals. For example, T-Mobile customers on the Go5G Next plan now get Hulu's ad-supported plan. Buying a new TV or laptop can come with a free subscription for a limited time. And streaming companies may drop prices during sales events like Black Friday.

Sign up for free streaming services: Freevee, Pluto TV and Tubi all offer free streaming with ads. A library card may also let you watch free movies through streaming services like Hoopla and Kanopy.