Updated February 2026 · 5 min read
YouTube Premium costs $13.99/month ($167.88/year) — making it more expensive than Netflix, Hulu, or Disney+. Most people signed up for ad-free videos and forgot about it. Here's how to cancel, what you actually lose, and free alternatives that do most of the same thing.
✅ Difficulty: Easy
Fully cancellable online. No phone call, no retention agents. Takes about 2 minutes.
If you signed up through the YouTube iOS app, Apple handles billing:
⚠️ Apple-billed subscriptions cost $18.99/month (Apple adds their 30% cut). If you resubscribe, do it through youtube.com to pay $13.99 instead.
Only the family manager (the person who set up the plan) can cancel. Same steps as above. When the family plan is canceled, all family members lose Premium access at the end of the billing period. The family plan is $22.99/month — if you have 5 members, that's $4.60/person, which is actually good value.
❌ You Lose
✅ You Keep
🛡️ Ad-Free YouTube (Desktop)
Install uBlock Origin (free, open-source browser extension). It blocks all YouTube ads on desktop — video ads, banner ads, overlay ads. Works in Chrome, Firefox, Edge. This is the #1 reason people cancel Premium.
🎵 YouTube Music Replacement
Spotify Free — ad-supported but 100M+ songs. Or Apple Music ($10.99/mo) if you want ad-free. Both are cheaper than YouTube Premium.
📱 Background Play (Mobile)
On iPhone: open YouTube in Safari (not the app), play a video, swipe to home screen, then start playback from Control Center. On Android: some browsers with desktop mode enable background play.
For comparison: Netflix is $6.99-$22.99, Hulu is $9.99, Disney+ is $9.99, Spotify is $11.99. YouTube Premium is the most expensive ad-free streaming service relative to what it offers, since YouTube itself is already free.
Yes. Go to youtube.com/paid_memberships → Manage → Pause. You can pause for 1-6 months. Billing stops and your account stays intact.
YouTube occasionally offers 1-3 months at a reduced rate ($0-$5.99) during the cancellation flow or via email a few weeks after canceling. If you cancel and wait, there's a decent chance you'll get a win-back offer.
No. Your Google account, Gmail, Google Drive, and everything else are completely unaffected. Only YouTube Premium benefits are removed.
💸 YouTube Premium is $168/year. What else is hiding?
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