Apple TV Triples Its Launch Price as Sports Join the Plan

Apple TV now costs $14.99 a month in the United States, a $2 jump that also lifts Apple One Individual to $21.95. New buyers pay it as of August 28. Current subscribers get about a month of notice before the new rate hits their card.

The TV bump is the second half of a six-week pass-through. Apple raised Music and the family Apple One tiers on July 17, left Individual frozen, then came back for Individual once TV moved, 12 days before its iPhone event.

A Two-Month Squeeze on Apple One

On July 17, Apple lifted Apple Music Individual to $11.99 from $10.99 and pushed the Family Music plan to $19.99 from $16.99. Student Music went to $6.99. The company said the move was “as a result of rising licensing costs.” Apple One Family rose $2 to $27.95. Premier rose $2 to $39.95. Individual One stayed at $19.95, so that tier ate a Music increase inside a frozen bundle.

Six weeks later, on August 28, the TV line moved and Individual One moved with it. Family and Premier did not move again. Each Apple One tier paid an extra $2 once this summer. The only question was which month the bill arrived.

APPLE’S TWO SUMMER PRICE MOVES

The annual TV plan is the quieter change. Apple left it at $99 when it raised the monthly rate last August, which made the yearly option look even cheaper. That door is narrower now. $119 a year is $9.92 a month, against $179.88 if you pay $14.99 twelve times, a gap of about $61. The yearly rate still wins on math. It just jumped 20.2%, more than the 15.4% monthly hike.

The $2 Increase Hits Individual Plans Only

Family and Premier customers can skip this round. Individual customers cannot. The Apple One Individual plan at $21.95 is $2 higher, the same dollar step as standalone TV, and Apple still advertises a $13 monthly saving against buying the pieces apart. TV and Arcade on that plan keep Family Sharing, so one Individual One subscription can still feed a household’s shows and games even when iCloud+ and Music stay with the buyer.

Standalone TV at $14.99 is high enough that $21.95 for the bundle starts to look like the default checkout, not a perk. That is the point of lifting both lines on the same day. A household that only wanted Severance or Friday baseball now stares at a $2 TV increase and a bundle that is only $7 more than TV alone, with Music and Arcade hanging off the side.

Some bills still look closer to $11 because the old $99 year, a student Music plan, or a leftover Individual One rate has not rolled yet. Those cheaper lines are why Apple had to touch both the annual plan and Individual One. A $2 monthly hike that leaves $99 years and $19.95 bundles in place leaks. This one does not.

Services Revenue Hit $30.7 Billion Last Quarter

Apple can reprice this way because the services line is where the cash is thick. For the quarter ended June 27, the company posted Services sales of $30.7 billion, up 12% from $27.4 billion a year earlier. Services costs were about $7.5 billion. That is a 76% gross margin on the segment, against about 40% on products. Total revenue was $109.4 billion, up 16%. Diluted earnings per share were $2.02, up 29%, and company gross margin was 50.1%, including about 2 points from tariff refunds.

SERVICES IN THE JUNE QUARTER

• Services sales: $30.7 billion, a June-quarter record, up 12% from $27.4 billion.
• Paid subscriptions: Apple said the count surpassed 1.5 billion across its services.
• Active devices: The installed base passed 2.5 billion, a new high in every major product category.
• Services costs: About $7.5 billion, which is why a $2 rate change drops through so cleanly.

Tim Cook, then still chief executive, put the quarter on the services engine as much as on iPhone.

Today, Apple is proud to report our strongest June quarter ever, with double-digit revenue growth across iPhone, Mac and Services, and in every geographic segment.

Tim Cook, Chief Executive, Apple fiscal third-quarter results

CFO Kevan Parekh told analysts the company set June-quarter records in advertising, the App Store, AppleCare, Apple Music, and Apple TV, plus all-time records in cloud and payments. Apple still will not say how many people pay for Apple TV itself. The 1.5 billion figure is the whole stack. Video is one meter in a much larger machine, which is why a TV price can move even when Cupertino will not size the service.

F1, MLS, and Friday Night Baseball Come With the Plan

The product under that $14.99 is no longer a slim original-series add-on. Apple’s own TV page now sells F1, MLS, and Friday Night Baseball as part of the standard subscription, with no extra pass. That is the inventory the new rate is asking people to value, and it is the same turn toward live sports inside the standard plan that already ended the $4.99 era.

WHAT $14.99 BUYS IN LIVE SPORTS

• Formula 1: Apple TV is the U.S. home for 2026, with practice, qualifying, Sprint sessions, and every Grand Prix in the app.
• Major League Soccer: Every club and every match, with no blackouts, after the old MLS Season Pass was folded into the base plan.
• Friday Night Baseball: Weekly MLB doubleheaders through the regular season, offered to subscribers in 60 countries and regions.

One subscription covers up to six people through Family Sharing, which works out to about $2.50 a head if a household actually uses all six slots. Originals stay commercial-free, with new films and series landing on Wednesdays and Fridays. The same August 28 that new buyers started paying $14.99, Apple also put Friday Night Baseball into Apple Immersive on Vision Pro, starting with Red Sox versus Yankees in 8K with a 180-degree field of view. The company repriced the service on the day it asked headset owners to sit inside a ballpark.

Why Apple TV Still Runs With No Ads

Rivals used the past year to build a cheap door with ads and a dear door without them. Apple still has one door. There is no ad-supported Apple TV plan, and the company has shown no interest in copying the Music playbook it refuses to use against Spotify. At $14.99 you are below Netflix’s $19.99 ad-free Standard plan and in line with Peacock’s $19.99 Premium Plus, but you cannot drop to Netflix’s $8.99 ad tier or Disney+ at $11.99 with ads. You pay the prestige price or you leave.

AD-FREE STREAMING PRICES NOW

Netflix raised U.S. prices in March. Peacock moved in mid-August, with Premium Plus up $3. Hardware makers have been lifting device prices as memory and parts flow into AI data centers, which gives every subscription team cover to move in the same season. Apple is using that cover without giving viewers a lower rung. The complaint that follows is older than this $2: streaming was supposed to undercut cable, and a stack of $15-to-$20 apps does not. Apple TV is still the cheaper ad-free line next to Netflix Standard. It is no longer the $4.99 perk that rode along with a new iPhone.

John Ternus Inherits the New Price Floor

The emails will land on current subscribers around late September, about a month after the August 28 notice. John Ternus became chief executive on September 1, the day after Cook’s last full date in the job. The rate change was Cook’s last consumer-facing services move. Ternus now owns the churn, the sports rights, and a services floor that is $2 higher on the two plans most likely to be held by a single adult with an iPhone.

THE 2026 SUBSCRIPTION CALENDAR

1. July 17, 2026: Raises Apple Music Individual to $11.99 and lifts Apple One Family and Premier by $2, leaving Individual One at $19.95.
2. July 30, 2026: Reports $30.7 billion in services revenue and a 1.5 billion paid-subscription base on Cook’s final earnings call as CEO.
3. August 28, 2026: Moves Apple TV to $14.99 a month and $119 a year, and moves Individual One to $21.95, the same day Immersive baseball debuts.
4. September 1, 2026: Hands the chief executive job to John Ternus, with Cook becoming executive chairman.
5. September 9, 2026: Stages the iPhone event, where a first foldable model is expected to soak up the week’s attention.

Existing TV and Individual One customers should watch for Apple’s notice and the renewal date that follows it. New sign-ups already pay $14.99. The iPhone show next week will bury a lot of that mail. The new floor will still be there when the keynote ends.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Apple TV Come Free With a New Apple Device?

Eligible buyers who purchase and activate a new iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, or Mac can redeem three months of Apple TV at no charge, one offer per Family Sharing group, if they claim it within 90 days. New subscribers who are not buying hardware still get a seven-day trial before the $14.99 monthly rate. Both offers auto-renew until cancelled, so the calendar reminder matters more than the headline “free.”

Does the Apple Music Student Plan Include Apple TV?

Yes. Verified students pay $6.99 a month for Apple Music after a one-month trial and get Apple TV thrown in at no extra cost, which is now $8 a month cheaper than paying for TV alone. That student bundle is the last widely available way to sit under $10 and still receive the full originals-and-sports app, and it did not move on August 28.

Is Apple One Sold as a Yearly Plan?

No. Apple One is monthly only, with no annual prepaid option and no long-term contract. Individual is $21.95, Family is $27.95, and Premier is $39.95, and Apple says those tiers discount the à la carte stack by as much as 46%. You can cancel a day before renewal and keep access through the month you already paid.

Did Apple Raise Apple TV Prices Outside the United States?

On August 28 the new TV rates also went live in Brazil, Chile, and Mexico. Other major markets were not on that day’s list. Apple One pages already show local figures that do not always match a straight dollar conversion, so a U.S. $21.95 Individual plan is not a global template, and anyone billed in another currency should check the Apple One page for that country rather than multiply the U.S. tag.