Sling TV has increased the price of all of its base plans by $5 per month. Sling TV is one of the cheapest ways to stream live TV over the internet, and hasn’t increased its prices in almost two years. However, and while this price increase isn’t totally surprising, it is still likely to make some homes consider whether Sling TV is worth the asking price.
When Sling TV first launched back in 2015, the cost of the base plan was just $20 per month. The live TV streaming service has encountered a few price increases since then, with the latest one resulting in the base price of a subscription costing twice as much as it did at launch.
Starting today (Nov. 3) the cost of the Sling Blue or Sling Orange base plan is $40 per month, an increase of $5. For those opting for the Sling Orange & Blue plan, which combines both channel lineups, the new price is $55 per month. The higher prices are already in effect when signing up through the Sling TV website. Existing subscribers are being given an additional month to adjust to the price change, so they won’t see their price increase before December 3, 2022. The exact date will vary by subscriber and depend on their individual billing cycle.
While highlighting that the increase comes at a challenging time for consumers, Sling TV’s Group President Gary Schanman said that price increases are “not something we take lightly.” In the same blog post, Schanman looked to explain that the price increase is a result of Sling TV’s own rising costs.
“Sling doesn’t own the networks you watch — we pay programmers for their channels, and the price of programming continues to rise.”
Gary Schanman/Sling TV
In spite of the price increase, Schanman argued that Sling TV remains the best value in live TV streaming, and that the company is “deeply committed to keeping costs low.” In addition, Schanman also pointed to a number of new features that are coming soon to improve the user experience and add value.
In reality, Sling TV is still a competitive option at $40 per month, and especially when considering most of the other live TV streaming services cost significantly more. However, $40 is still a jump, and starts to place Sling TV more on the expensive side. This is even more the case when considering signing up to the combined $55 plan, which is now firmly within price reach of many other live TV streaming services.
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