I haven’t paid full-price for YouTube TV for 9 months. Here’s how I do it

When YouTube TV initially launched in 2017, the service cost just $34.99 each month — an unbelievably good deal by today’s standards. But it only took about a year for the first price increase to arrive, bumping it up to $39.99 per month in 2018, and it’s been downhill for our wallets ever since.

The current $82.99/month price tag sure does sting, but I have a confession to make: I haven’t paid that higher price yet. Instead, my bill is still at the old $72.99/month rate. How? It’s all thanks to Google itself.

Like millions of other YouTube TV subscribers, I received an email on December 12 last year informing me that my YouTube TV bill would increase from $72.99/month to $82.99/month effective January 13.

Obviously, I wasn’t happy about this. I already thought the $72.99/month rate was a bit steep, so jacking up the price even more certainly wasn’t something I was looking forward to. After thinking things over for a few days, I decided I could probably live without YouTube TV and end my subscription.

So, on December 28, I did just that. I opened the YouTube TV website, opened the Membership page, and clicked the “Cancel” button. Almost immediately after doing so, I was offered a promotion to keep my current $72.99/month price for the next six months if I didn’t cancel — no other strings attached.

Naturally, I accepted it. Why not, right? I got to keep the old price, and if I still didn’t want to pay $82.99/month once those six months were up, I could always cancel then. So, that’s exactly what I did.

Then June rolled around, and it was almost time for my bill to finally increase to $82.99. I visited the YouTube TV Membership page again to see if clicking the Cancel button would trigger another promo — but I didn’t have to. There, sitting front and center on the Membership page, was an offer to extend that $72.99 price by another six months. Add those two promos together, and I’ll have kept the old $72.99 rate for an entire year — saving me a grand total of $120. Not bad for just clicking a couple of buttons once every six months.

And Google didn’t stop there. I found myself on the Membership page again earlier this month, only to find yet another promo — this time to decrease my bill to just $49.99/month for the next two months. I ultimately decided to keep my current $72.99 pricing through the end of the year, but it was still nice to see the offers continuing to roll in.

As mentioned above, I didn’t have to put in a lot of work or effort to get these discounts. I began the cancellation process for the first promo, but for the other two, they were simply waiting for me on the YouTube TV website.

While it may seem too good to be true, I get why Google does this. I was very seriously considering canceling my YouTube TV subscription last December, but thanks to promo after promo, I’m still subscribed nine months later, and I likely will be until at least the end of the year. In other words, Google sacrificed $120 (the $10 discount multiplied by 12) to get another $875 ($72.99 * 12) out of me. Looked at that way, it makes sense for Google to offer these promos.

If Google is willing to let me continue paying $72.99/month for YouTube TV, why not just keep the old price for another year and avoid the bad PR of the price increase? It sounds like the most straightforward approach, and it’s one I and everyone else would likely prefer.

I think the answer is pretty simple. Google doesn’t actively advertise these discounts. They’re easy to find if you know where to look, but it still requires some effort on your part, however little it may be. The vast majority of people will pay the $82.99 price without ever knowing they could be getting YouTube TV for less.

So, if you haven’t already been checking for YouTube TV promos, let this be your reminder to start doing so. The exact steps are as follows:

1. Go to the YouTube TV website on your computer.
2. Click your profile icon in the upper-right corner.
3. Click Settings.
4. Click Manage near the top of the page (next to Base Plan).

If you have a discount available, you’ll see it right below the “Options” area, as you can see in the screenshot above. If there’s nothing there, it’s worth clicking the Cancel button to see if that triggers a promo.

You aren’t guaranteed to always have an offer available, but it’s certainly worth checking every now and then. It takes just a couple of seconds, and if you do find a discount, it could potentially save you a lot of money.