time is money

Odds Are You Can Probably Score Showtime for Cheap

Binge Yellowjackets for free, if you dare. Photo: Kailey Schwerman/SHOWTIME

The fastest way to financial ruin is to pay full price for every streaming service out there. To keep you solvent, we’re constantly watching for new deals, promotions, and full-on freebies. Check back here or follow us on Twitter for updates.

The Big Showtime Bundle

With a sure-to-be terrifying Yellowjackets finale on deck for this coming weekend, now’s a good time to play catch-up — ideally with a Showtime free trial if you haven’t already ponied up for the service. If you’ve already exhausted a free trial, fortunately, the streaming service has a few promotions on offer to sweeten the deal. The most economical one for most customers is a bundle: You can get Showtime and Paramount+, the two streaming children of media daddy ViacomCBS, for $11.99 a month. That’s two dollars cheaper than Netflix’s cheapest HD-streaming tier and three dollars cheaper than HBO Max’s ad-free tier. Not a bad deal, especially if you’d also like to watch Star Trek: Discovery, The Good Fight, and Evil. The regular monthly subscription to Showtime is $10.99, while Paramount+ is $4.99. The bundle saves you about 25 percent compared with paying for both services separately.

How to Watch Showtime for Cheap (or for Free)

Students, capitalize on this Spotify deal. You’ll need a working .edu email address to sign up, but this is actually better than the deal above. It gets you access to Spotify, Hulu’s ad-supported plan, and Showtime together for a monthly $4.99 subscription — a monthly savings of $21.98. If you’re not a student, we strongly recommend finding a friend or relative who is.

Don't have Showtime?

A month is yours for free. Assuming they give you a grace period at all, streaming services like Apple TV+ and Discovery+ cap theirs at seven days. Showtime offers a full 30. A week may be enough to binge the inaugural season of Yellowjackets, but if you want to burn through all five of Billions, you’ll probably need that month. Just remember to cancel well before Day 29, Hour 23, Minute 59. And by the way: the free Paramount+ trial is also seven days, but if you bundle with that service, the free trial for both of them is 30 days! Does it make sense? No. Should you care? Also no.

If you get Showtime on cable, you’re probably set. Odds are you’re not Googling how to do this, but we’d be remiss not to mention it. Showtime Anytime is more or less the same as Showtime on streaming, but it’s managed through your cable company and requires that login to use. Cable customers can access it for free, and it’s available on browsers, Apple’s App Store, Google Play, Roku, and more.

Go annual, baby. Showtime’s yearly subscription isn’t especially well advertised on its home page right now, but it’s also not a bad deal if you want just Showtime. It costs $99 for a year of service, compared with the $132 or so that you’d pay for a stand-alone monthly subscription. The yearly bundle with Paramount+ is $119.99, by the way.

While You’re Here

Don’t miss out on our other Showtime-related features, resources, and coverage.

How to Gift Showtime …
… And all the other major streaming platforms. It’s the gift that keeps on giving, all year long.

Everything Yellowjackets
We have recaps, theories, interview transcripts, and, welp, Melanie Lynskey discussing a certain “very embarrassing” line reading.

And as promised a few hundred words ago, if you follow Streamliner on Twitter, we’ll keep you posted on new money-saving bonanzas.

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Odds Are You Can Probably Score Showtime for Cheap