Australians are spending more than $500 per year on streaming services, as they increasingly opt for on-demand content over free-to-air television.
The average monthly spend on streaming subscriptions has risen to $44 a month, up from $41 the year before, according to an 8000-person survey from Canstar.
Australians are also increasingly juggling more than one service, with seven out of 10 users tapping two or more services, while more than one in 10 shelled out for five platforms or more.
Streaming was once the budget-friendly alternative, but those days were numbered, said Canstar utilities and finance expert Tara Donnelly.
“Between new ad-supported tiers, discontinued ad-free plans, and premium prices creeping even higher, Australians need to actively review what they’re paying for or risk quietly overspending,” she said.
Disney+, Paramount and Netflix have increased the costs of their plans by between $3 and $4 per month over the past year.
As living costs continued to bite, almost 30 per cent of users admitted to sharing their login details with others, a figure that rose to one in three for Millennials, and almost one in every two Gen Z subscribers.
Netflix, Disney+ and a handful of other providers have been cracking down on password sharing and now charge for extra members living outside the family household.
“While it might feel like a harmless way to cut costs, streaming platforms are cracking down hard, and sharing outside your household could leave you locked out or facing an extra fee,” Ms Donnelly said.
Netflix remains the market heavyweight in Australia, with 78 per cent of survey respondents subscribed, followed by Amazon Prime (42 per cent), Disney+ (32 per cent), Stan (24 per cent) and Paramount+ (19 per cent).
Roughly 58 per cent of respondents said they now watched streaming services more than free-to-air television.
“Free-to-air TV is fast becoming the fallback option rather than the first choice for millions of Australians,” Ms Donnelly said.
While traditional free-to-air viewership rebounded in 2025 to about 52 per cent of adults, it remained significantly lower than the 71 per cent recorded less than 10 years earlier in 2017, according to Australian Media and Communications Authority data.
Traditional TV broadcasters have launched their own on-demand streaming platforms to help offset the advertising impact of the new reality.
But industry intelligence group IBISWorld estimates revenue has fallen at a rate of around five per cent per year since the start of the decade.
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