Just how many ads are there on ad-supported streaming apps, really?
We watched 12 shows on six platforms to find out how much of your life you give up to save a few bucks each month.
It’s getting harder to avoid ads on streaming video. For cord-cutters, after years of living in ad-free bliss, the trend is heading toward ads — a lot of ads.
The big streaming platforms are all boosting the price of their ad-free subscriptions, trying to get as many people over to an ad-supported tier, which has a greater potential revenue per user despite the lower monthly fees.
After suffering through what seemed to be an absurd number of ads recently while watching a show on my ad-supported Paramount+ plan, I decided to gather some data and see exactly how many ads are being crammed into the typical program, and how much time they’re taking up during the viewing session.
I signed up for new ad-supported accounts on Netflix, Peacock, Disney+, Max, Paramount+, and Hulu and watched all the ads on 12 popular shows — two on each platform — so you didn’t have to. You’re welcome.
The first thing I wanted to quantify was exactly how much of my viewing went to ads versus the program itself.
Let’s take a look at what we learned from each platform’s shows.
Paramount+
Paramount’s Paramount+ platform is home to the “Star Trek” franchise, Showtime series like “Yellowjackets,” and the original streaming series “Yellowstone,” as well as a huge library of CBS shows.
The cheapest plan is “Paramount+ Essential” for $7.99 a month or $59.99 a year with “limited commercial interruptions.”
Taylor Sheridan’s CIA thriller “Lioness” had 18 ads — the most ads overall in the shows I watched — across five ad breaks during its 50 minutes.
This is the show I was watching that gave me ad fatigue. Perhaps it would have felt different if they just grouped all the ads into two longer ad breaks, as each one pulls you out of the world of the show.
One thing that struck me about the ads shown for both “Lioness” and “Landman” (another Sheridan show) was the sheer number of Paramount-owned brands in the mix. “Landman” had only two ads out of its 14 that were not Paramount house ads. “Lioness” had only two non-Paramount advertisers out of its 18 ads. I kept seeing lots of ads for “Yellowstone” merch. It made me wonder why I wasn’t seeing real brands in these ads.
Paramount did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Peacock
NBCUniversal’s Peacock platform has decades’ worth of NBC programs like “The Office,” “Law & Order,” and “Saturday Night Live,” as well as the huge catalog of Universal films such as “Jurassic Park,” the “Fast & Furious” series, and films featuring classic Universal monsters like “King Kong.”
The cheapest Peacock plan is the ad-supported “Premium” plan for $7.99 a month or $79.99 a year, which includes some live sports and events.
Watching episode one of “Law & Order: SVU”’s 26th season (!!!), I counted six ad breaks — the most ad breaks in all the programs I watched. The episode of “The Office” I watched had a similar ratio of ads to program, with ads making up about 11% of the episode time. But as a percentage of ads versus program, Peacock’s shows fell in the middle of the pack.
NBCUniversal did not return a request for comment.
Disney+
Disney’s Disney+ platform offers a huge variety of blockbuster films and shows, including the libraries of Disney, Pixar, and the “Star Wars” and Marvel universes. The cheapest plan you can get is the “Disney+ Basic (with ads)” for $9.99 a month.
The new Disney+ “Star Wars” series “Skeleton Crew” showed me the highest percentage of ads, coming in at 16.2% of the program. That’s 5 minutes and 16 seconds out of a 32-minute program, over four ad breaks. That feels like a lot of interruptions.
The Christmas special, “The Simpsons: O C’mon All Ye Faithful,” wasn’t far behind, with 14 ads making up 13.4% of the show.
Disney did not return a request for comment.
Hulu
Disney is also now the full owner of Hulu after buying out the 33% stake owned by Comcast in 2023. The company is pushing Disney+ and Hulu bundles aggressively on its website, but you can still get a stand-alone ad-supported Hulu subscription for $9.99 a month. The platform has a lot of highly rated originals like “The Handmaid’s Tale,” FX’s “The Bear,” and “Shogun.”
Both “Gilmore Girls” and “Abbott Elementary” had the same percentage of ads per show, about 13%. “Abbott Elementary” packed 12 ads into its 25-minute run time — but at least most ads were only 15 seconds long.
Hulu did not return a request for comment.
Max
Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max streaming platform rolls up decades’ worth of HBO’s iconic series, like “The Sopranos,” “Game of Thrones,” and “Succession,” with blockbusters from the Warner Brothers library like “The Dark Knight,” “Barbie,” and the “Harry Potter” series as well as popular TV shows. The cheapest ad-supported Max plan costs $9.99 a month.
Watching “The Big Bang Theory,” Max served up six ads over three ad breaks, making up about 9% of the 25-minute program. “Young Sheldon” had two ad breaks with four ads in total, or about 7% of the show, which seemed pretty reasonable.
Max did not return a request for comment.
Netflix
Netflix has been streaming for 17 years and has 283 million paid subscribers. There are 70 million monthly active users on the ad-supported tier, which it’s been offering for two years and is priced at $6.99 a month.
Netflix had some of the first hit streaming original series, including “Orange Is the New Black,” “Stranger Things,” and “The Crown.”
I was surprised to find that Netflix held the lowest percentages of ads per program in my tests. The Norwegian disaster miniseries “La Palma” offered the fewest ads, showing just three in two ad breaks. It had the smallest percentage of ads versus program at 2.6%.
Netflix’s new live-action “Avatar: The Last Airbender” series was close behind with 4% of ads versus program, showing four ads over three breaks.
Netflix did not return a request for comment.
So, after almost 500 minutes of programming and 51 minutes of ads, here’s the final scorecard. Of these ad-supported plans, Netflix’s $6.99 plan is the cheapest, followed by Peacock and Paramount+, at $7.99 a month. Paramount+ showed slightly more ads than Peacock and they were often the same house ads for CBS shows, which became annoying. (I did not buy any “Yellowstone” merch as a result of it, that’s for sure.)
In the end, Netflix stood alone with not just the lowest price, but the overall smallest percentage of ads per show. So, if you value your time and can’t stomach the $15.49 ad-free tier, Netflix’s ad-supported plan might be the best bang for your buck.
Update (January 10): An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated Netflix’s ad-supported tier cost $9.99 instead of $6.99, and that it had 70 million subscribers instead of monthly active users at that tier. We have also corrected the spelling of Taylor Sheridan's last name.
