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Peacock Premium Has Commercials, Depending on How Much You Pay

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Peacock Premium does come with commercials, although subscribers can choose to pay more each month to remove the ads. The streaming service is available in three tiers that, not only vary on content, but also on commercials.

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Peacock launched nationwide in July 2020 with three different plan options available. The basic Peacock plan is completely free, but it is limited on how many show episodes and movies are available to watch. In addition, the free plan also includes commercials.

For those that want unlimited access to everything Peacock has to offer, there’s the Peacock Premium plan. However, this plan comes in two different flavors and ad breaks is the main defining difference between them.

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Peacock Premium with and without ads

A standard Peacock Premium subscription costs $4.99 per month or $49.99 if subscribing to the annual plan. For that price, subscribers gain access to every show episode and movie, as well as live sports, including Premier League without restrictions.

However, the standard Peacock Premium subscription is not an ad-free plan, so subscribers will still see commercials before, after, and possibly during a video.

For those that want a completely ad-free Peacock experience then the only option is the Peacock Premium Plus plan. This is the most premium subscription currently offered by Peacock and costs $9.99 per month, or $99.99 if paying annually. It is also the only plan that totally removes the ads.

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Peacock Premium commercials caveats

Xfinity Flex and Xfinity X1 customers, as well as select Cox Internet customers, are eligible for a free Peacock Premium subscription. However, this is the standard $4.99 per month Peacock Premium plan. As a result, customers getting Peacock Premium for free should still expect to see commercials when watching shows and movies. That’s unless they opt to pay the additional $5 per month to upgrade their subsidized subscription to Peacock Premium Plus.

Even when paying the $9.99 per month for Premium Plus, there is still the possibility that commercials will be encountered. Although this is an ad-free plan, and the only difference between the $4.99 and $9.99 subscriptions, Peacock does make it clear that some content may still include ads, due to streaming rights.

According to the service, “Peacock channels, events, and a few shows and movies” are examples of when ads might be shown to Premium Plus subscribers.

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Peacock Premium commercials summary

Peacock offers a free, Premium and Premium Plus plan. The $9.99 per month Premium Plus plan is the only subscription that offers a totally ad-free experience. However, paying extra for the Premium Plus plan does not guarantee that all content will be available without commercials, although the vast majority will be.

It is also worth noting that the removal of ads is the only difference between the two Premium plans, with both offering the same unlimited access to shows and movies.

Overall, if the inclusion of ads is not a deal-breaker, then subscribers are likely to be best off going with the cheaper $4.99 per month Premium subscription. When opting for the cheaper, ad-supported Premium plan, subscribers always have the option to upgrade to Peacock Premium Plus and remove the ads, if they feel the commercials are not worth the additional discount. Although, subscribers that have prepaid for Peacock Premium for the year ahead may find upgrading harder to do.

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Read more: Peacock: How Many Devices Can Stream at the Same Time

John Finn

By John Finn

John started Streaming Better to help consumers navigate the live TV streaming and subscription service landscape. John has been editing and writing about technology and streaming for online publications since 2014, and believes the best streaming approach is to rotate between services as needed.

John's preferred live TV streaming service right now is YouTube TV although he does tend to switch live TV services multiple times each year to keep up to date with their changes. Outside of live TV, John also actively streams HBO Max (for the shows), Peacock (for Premier League), and Paramount Plus (for Champion's League). However, John is also currently subscribed to Apple TV+, Discovery+, Hulu, Starz, Showtime, and Shudder.

Contact John via email at john@streamingbetter.com or say hi on Twitter

8 replies on “Peacock Premium Has Commercials, Depending on How Much You Pay”

This has been my experience also. I subscribed to Premium Plus for the Olympics and my first day had no ads. Now there are LOTS of ads on the second day. Perhaps during primetime it will be different, but this is pretty disappointing.

I only have peacock premium plus so I can avoid the ads when watching premier league soccer. It doesn’t make a difference. All through half time I’m advertised State Farm l, Verizon & Lexus to name a few.

I never used to see ads, but one day *BANG* there they were. I reached out to peacock expecting this to be an error, but no, it appears “Due to streaming rights, a small amount of programming will still contain ads (Peacock channels, events and a few shows and movies)” is just a lie.

They just give you any add they like.

Nice, I pay the extra for peacock premium plus to get some movies without ads. and I spent hours looking for one movie without ads, and no luck, So looks like we just pay extra for the broken promises. I’m going to reach out to them one more time before canceling my subscription.

I have Peacock Premium. I don’t understand why they don’t have every season of Law and Order available…only certain seasons. This really bothers me.

They put on 5 minutes of commercials during a live premier league game.
I keep missing crucial game moment, because the commercials keep coming up. WTF!!

I am watching the beginning activities of the Indy 500 on Peacock Premium Plus watching many adds. I hope when the race starts that it is add free. If not, isn’t this false advertising?

After reading all these comments, I’m glad I didn’t subscribe to Premium Plus. I despise commercials! Why in God’s name would anybody pay the 10 bucks a month to still get ads when it’s the same as premium for 5 bucks a month. I’m a huge fan of Dateline but if there’s gonna be commercials in this too, I may as well just watch it on my basic cable channel and forward the commercials from my DVR instead of being stuck to force watch commercials you can’t fast forward and pay 10 bucks a month. That’s ridiculous Peacock, what’s wrong with you people?!

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