If your streaming bill felt out of control in 2025, the numbers back you up.
New data from the US Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows that the prices Americans pay for access to video streaming services and video games surged 29 percent between December 2024 and December 2025.
That single category did more than almost anything else to push consumer prices higher last year.
Streaming outran overall inflation by a wide margin
The BLS tracks what it calls the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), a broad basket of goods and services that it says represents more than 90 percent of the US population.
Across the entire basket, prices rose 2.7 percent (unadjusted) over the 12 months ending December 2025.
The CPI-U subindex for “subscription and rental of video and video games”—which includes:
- Subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services like Netflix and Disney+
- One-time rentals of video and video game media
- Rentals via physical copies, streaming, or temporary downloads
…shot up 29 percent over the same period.
For comparison, traditional “cable, satellite, and live streaming television service” (including offerings like YouTube TV and Sling) rose just 4.9 percent over the year.
In other words, app-based streaming subscriptions are now driving TV and gaming price pain far more than cable ever did in 2025.
A jaw-dropping month: November to December 2025
The BLS also publishes seasonally adjusted data to strip out predictable, recurring price swings.
On that basis, subscription and rental of video and video games jumped 19.5 percent in a single month, from November to December 2025. That’s an extreme move for any consumer category, let alone one that has become a default part of US household spending.
The BLS notes that unadjusted numbers are "of primary interest to consumers concerned about the prices they actually pay," but the adjusted spike underscores how aggressively providers pushed through increases late in the year.
The worst inflation of any tracked category
Within the CPI-U detail tables, streaming and gaming access was the fastest-rising line item in 2025.
Nothing else in the official basket climbed as quickly:
- Subscription and rental of video and video games: 29.0%
- Instant coffee: 28.0%
- Roasted coffee: 18.7%
- Uncooked beef steaks: 17.8%
When your monthly streaming bill is beating out beef and coffee on inflation, something structural has changed.
A huge step up from 2024
The 2025 shock also marks a sharp departure from the year before.
According to the same BLS series:
- From December 2023 to December 2024, streaming and gaming subscriptions and rentals rose just 1.6 percent (unadjusted).
- Over that 2024 window, the overall CPI-U rose 2.9 percent.
So in 2024, streaming and game access was basically flat in real terms. In 2025, it became one of the hottest inflation pockets in the US economy.
Why streaming prices are rising so fast
The BLS data doesn’t explain why prices are moving. The business context does.
US streaming has hit maturity. Growth in new subscriptions has slowed or stalled for many services. To satisfy investors and cover mounting costs, providers have turned to a familiar lever: price hikes.
Across 2025, virtually every major streaming platform raised rates, including:
- Netflix
- Disney+
- HBO Max
- Apple TV
Smaller players, including niche services like Dropout and Discovery+, also bumped prices as they wrestled with the cost of maintaining large, on-demand libraries full of expensive, original content.
At the same time, platforms have been fighting a different set of financial pressures:
- Higher production and licensing costs
- Rising labor costs
- A market that now expects a constant flow of fresh, high-quality shows and games
Initial streaming prices were deliberately low to lure people away from traditional TV bundles. Those teaser economics were never sustainable. 2025 is when the reset really showed up in the federal data.
Price hikes meet user frustration
Economically, the increases are easy to rationalize. Experientially, they feel worse.
Consumers are facing higher bills while complaining about:
- Content quality and availability (shows disappearing, fewer must-watch hits)
- Ad loads on previously ad-free tiers
- Confusing apps and poor discovery across multiple services
- Anxiety about consolidation in subscription video-on-demand (SVOD), as big platforms combine bundles and power
The result: users feel squeezed from both sides—paying more while liking the product less.
What’s likely in 2026: stealthier hikes and more bundles
Analysts don’t see a reversal ahead. Expectations for 2026 point to continued streaming price increases, but delivered in subtler ways.
Two tactics are already clear:
Upsells for premium features
Instead of raising the base price by another visible dollar amount, services can:- Charge extra for 4K or HDR
- Gate more simultaneous streams behind pricier tiers
- Put attractive features (offline downloads, ad-free viewing) into premium bundles
Aggressive bundling
More platforms are likely to package streaming with:- Other streaming services (multi-app bundles)
- Third-party perks, like cloud storage or mobile plans
Bundles let companies pitch “more value” while nudging the effective price per service higher and making cancellations more painful.
For now, the message from the BLS is blunt: subscription-based access to video and games is no longer the cheap alternative to cable. It’s one of the most inflationary line items in the modern US household budget—with little sign of cooling off in 2026.
