Federal data underscores meteoric rise of streaming subscription prices in 2025

The prices that Americans paid for subscription- and rental-based access to video streaming services and video games increased 29 percent from December 2024 to December 2025, according to data that the US Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released on Tuesday.

According to the BLS, the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), which BLS says represents over 90 percent of the US population across the country, for all items “increased 2.7 percent before seasonal adjustment.”

The CPI-U for “subscription and rental of video and video games” includes subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) streaming services, like Netflix and Disney+, and “one-time rental of video and video game media. These may be rented or subscribed to through physical copy, streaming, or temporary download,” BLS says. For comparison, “cable, satellite, and live streaming television service [such as YouTube TV and Sling]” saw 4.9 percent inflation last year.

The index isn’t adjusted for the “effect of changes that normally occur at the same time and in about the same magnitude every year—such as price movements resulting from changing climatic conditions, production cycles, model changeovers, holidays, and sales,” per BLS. According to the federal agency, unadjusted data is “of primary interest to consumers concerned about the prices they actually pay.”

From November 2025 to December 2025 alone, subscription and rental of video and video games saw adjusted inflation of 19.5 percent, per BLS data.

Streaming and gaming subscriptions and rentals saw higher inflation in 2025 than any of the other CPI-U subcategories, which includes food. In that larger context, instant coffee (28 percent) saw the next highest inflation, followed by roasted coffee (18.7 percent), and uncooked beef steaks (17.8 percent).