How much does Apple TV Plus cost around the world?

Apple TV Plus has come a long way in a short time, with a wealth of good shows and movies now making it a respectable Netflix alternative. US residents pay $9.99 per month for the service, but that’s not what every other country pays. In fact, some countries pay almost as much per month as others pay in a year. If you’re interested in finding out about the Apple TV Plus cost around the world, we’ve done the research for you.

The service is available in over 100 countries, but we didn’t want to overload you with numbers. We looked up the prices from 36 of the most significant nations in terms of market share, representing most regions where Apple TV Plus is available. We’ve also stuck to the flat monthly fee to simplify the comparison rather than getting into the various deals and packages available.

How much does Apple TV Plus cost around the world?

The table below shows the price of Apple TV Plus in each country, both in the local currency and in the equivalent price in US dollars at the time of writing. We’ve then ordered them from cheapest to most expensive. It’s worth noting that some South American countries, such as Argentina and Bolivia, are charged for the service in dollars already.

India is the country with the cheapest subscription, paying the equivalent of just $1.19 per month. That’s $3 less than anywhere else we surveyed and more than eight times cheaper than the United States. The least expensive options aren’t limited to that part of the world, with the next three places on the list occupied by Brazil, South Korea, and Poland.

The US is among the most pricey places to get Apple TV Plus, but it isn’t the most expensive. Singapore residents are surprisingly paying more at the equivalent of $10.42 per month, but the United Kingdom leads the way. People across the pond are forking out £9.99 per month, which works out to around $12.61. Denmark and Switzerland are also down at the wrong end of the table.

While the spread might be wide, all but seven of the countries on the list pay between $6 and $10 for the Apple streaming service. The average is around $8.50, which went up significantly in October 2023 when Apple increased the price of the service in some countries, including the USA, the UK, and mainland Europe.

If Apple TV Plus is much cheaper in another country, and a VPN can be used to spoof your location, does that mean you can use a VPN to save money on Apple TV Plus?

Whether you can and whether you should are two different questions. From a technical point of view, you might be able to fire up the VPN and get part-way through the signup process as if you’re in another country, but payment is likely to be an issue. We haven’t tried it for obvious reasons, but we strongly suspect that you will need to use a payment method linked to the same country. Other services like Spotify have this requirement. This would be a much bigger hurdle to overcome, especially in a way that wouldn’t get you in trouble with the authorities.

Even if it were practical and legal, Apple certainly wouldn’t be happy. The tech giant almost certainly has teams and systems dedicated to rooting out such transgressions of its terms of service. If and when your plot is unveiled, the minimum sanction you’ll get is the loss of your account.

We wouldn’t advise or condone trying this for all the reasons above. Besides, the content in your country will be more tailored to people like you and probably more plentiful if you’re in the US.

We’ve just mentioned one of the obvious reasons for the price disparities, which is that the movies and shows available in each country are different. This is due to licenses, local demand, language, and other reasons. It stands to reason that if each country is getting a different version of the service, the price shouldn’t be uniform across the globe.

Another answer to this question, as it is to so many other questions, is profit. Apple is in the business of making money, and its subscription price model will be designed to maximize the bottom line everywhere it operates. A big factor will be each country’s average earnings and disposable income, as these will determine how many people can afford to line Apple’s coffers. For example, Indian residents may appear to get a good deal compared to the US, but with the average US salary more than ten times that of India, the monthly cost of Apple TV Plus is likely to be much closer as a percentage of the average citizen’s paycheck. In true free-market style, Apple will charge what it thinks people will pay.

Exchange rates also come into play when we make a comparison like this. By converting all of the local prices into US dollars for the purpose of the exercise, we change them from the fixed local price to one that changes every day depending on the currency markets. In a turbulent economic climate, the order of the list above might well have been different six months ago and will probably look different six months from now.