How To Watch Lifetime Channel 2023: Streaming, Satellite, and More
If twists and turns are your cups of TV tea—along with a flurry of new holiday movies—we’re here to help you watch Lifetime all year long.
The Lifetime Channel loves to embrace the seasonal spirit. Cable, satellite, and streaming all offer ways to watch this channel designed to give you all the feels.
When holiday flicks aren’t dominating its schedule of shows, Lifetime Channel also offers plenty of other movies—many of the mysterious variety, featuring sinister plots and twisty storylines.
The Lifetime Channel also offers an array of drama-filled reality shows. In the words of one of the Dance Moms participants, “I don’t even like dancing, I’m just here because my mom said she would buy me tacos.”
How to watch the Lifetime channel
Philo is one of the cheapest live TV streaming services on the market, and it has the Lifetime channel, as well as Lifetime Movie Network (LMN). If lifestyle and entertainment channels are your jam, Philo is a really good value—the cherry on top is its unlimited cloud DVR.
Sling TV is also a great option for Lifetime streaming. Keep in mind that all of Sling TV’s plans have the Lifetime channel and you can add on the Lifestyle Extra package—which has LMN and three Hallmark channels—for just $6 a month. Since Sling TV is pretty cheap to begin with, that add-on won’t break the bank.
If you want a supersized channel lineup (including the Lifetime channel and LMN) and premium features, we recommend DIRECTV’s Ultimate Package. It will cost you a little extra, but it’s worth it. In addition to Lifetime, it has two Hallmark channels, plenty of channels for sports fans, and lots of kids’ content—including, count ’em, three Nickelodeon channels.
Finally, if Lifetime movies are all you want, on-demand streaming service Lifetime Movie Club is your best option. Your subscription allows you to watch it on a desktop or an iOS or Android mobile device.
Now that we’ve given you an overview of what’s out there, let’s dig a little deeper into our top picks for watching Lifetime Channel.
Best TV providers for watching Lifetime
- Cheapest: Philo ($25.00/mo.)
- Best deals: Sling TV ($40.00–$55.00/mo.)
- Premium TV experience: DIRECTV ($69.99–$159.99/mo.)
- Streaming app: Lifetime Movie Club ($4.99/mo. or $49.99/yr.)
Philo
Philo is the cheapest option out there for livestreaming TV. For only $25 a month, you get 60+ cable channels, including the Lifetime channel and Hallmark Channel, which is often another fave with Lifetime viewers.
We absolutely love that most of the other channels included with your plan are popular favorites like OWN and Food Network.
Pro tip: You can always just add an inexpensive over-the-air (OTA) digital antenna to cover your local news and some nationally televised sports.
What puts Philo over the top for most Lifetime lovers, in our opinion, is its unlimited cloud DVR. That means no bulky cable box and the ability to record everything you want from the Lifetime channel.
If you want the most Lifetime possible, pair Philo with Lifetime Movie Club, and you’ll have the vast majority of Lifetime movies and shows currently available online for less than $30 per month.
If there are cons with a Philo subscription it’s that it doesn’t carry local stations—so don’t expect to get your ABC, CBS, and NBC fix. It also doesn’t offer sports channels. If you’re looking for ESPN or sports channels, in general, to accompany Lifetime, this may not be the way to go.
Sling TV
- $40.00–$55.00/mo.
- $6/mo. Lifestyle Extra add-on
- 30–45+ channels
- 30 hrs. of cloud DVR storage
The most you can spend a month on a Sling TV plan is $55 for its combo Orange + Blue plan. But if you want to get Lifetime, you can spend $40 for its Blue or Orange plan, which are $40 each, monthly. They both have Lifetime.
Many Lifetime fans also dig what the Hallmark Channel has to offer. If that’s true for you, grab your box of tissues and spend $6 a month on Sling TV’s Lifestyle Extra add-on option.
With the Sling TV packages, you can get anywhere from 32 to 46 channels. The Lifestyle Extra gets you nine channels, including Lifetime Movie Network, Hallmark Channel, and Hallmark Drama. That’s a combination guaranteed to provide hours worth of tears and fears.
Since prices are pretty low with Sling TV, the add-ons won’t make your wallet feel like it’s in a vice. Sports fans may dig the Sports Extra add-on option which gets you MLB Network, NHL Network, ESPNEWS, and the PAC-12 Network, to name a few.
Its $6 Comedy Extra is a fun add-on, and it includes some great additions like Logo and Paramount Network.
Bottom line: if anyone in your home has mixed feelings about Lifetime movies and shows, Sling TV is a moderately priced streaming option.
It has okay features that might work for you and enough channels and add-on options to give everyone a decent—and inexpensive—viewing experience.
DIRECTV
DIRECTV is all about the premium TV experience. If you want a slew of popular channels on top of your Lifetime fix, including local TV stations and regional sports networks, then DIRECTV is for you.
Lifetime lovers, we recommend DIRECTV’s Choice package. Its 200+ channels gets you Lifetime, the Hallmark Channel, and a range of Lifestyle content—from Investigation Discovery (ID) to Freeform and FXX—for $84.99 a month.
The package includes DIRECTV’s DVR, Genie, which offers 200 hours of cloud DVR storage. That’s plenty of room to build your ultimate Lifetime library for binge-watching. Unfortunately, use of the Genie requires a $15 per month Advanced Receiver Service Fee.
If you’re looking for a different package or provider, give our Best TV Packages guide a gander.
For the first three months of this plan, you also get Max (formerly HBO Max), CINEMAX, Paramount+ with SHOWTIME, STARZ, and MGM+™ free.*
The two-year contracts are a downside of DIRECTV, although it’s recently introduced a two-year price guarantee along with it. No, it’s not the cheapest way to watch Lifetime, but we think DIRECTV has some real pluses, like huge channel counts and a great DVR.
*These premium channels renew automatically, at the prevailing rates, after 3 months unless you change or cancel.
**Out of market games only. Select international games excluded.
Stream Lifetime movies on demand
Streaming the Lifetime channel on demand is an affordable way to scratch your comfort TV itch.
The best way to stream this movie-filled channel is to go directly to Lifetime. The download is free, but to watch anything on the Lifetime channel via the app, you’ll need your TV provider login and password information.
Lifetime Movie Club
If you want Lifetime movies on demand, you can stream plenty of them by subscribing to the Lifetime Movie Club for a very cheap $4.99/mo. or $49.99/yr.
Or, you can stream a decent amount of Lifetime movies, shows, and clips for free using the Lifetime app on your favorite device.
Lifetime channel on Netflix
Lifetime doesn’t currently have any movies on Netflix. There are Lifetime-like movies on Netflix, including Netflix Originals like A Perfect Fit and Crazy About Her, along with a ton of movies produced by rivals, such as Brain Power Studios and MarVista Entertainment.
Lifetime channel on Hulu
The Hulu + Live TV plan includes Lifetime among its 75+ channels for $76.99–$89.99/mo. Frankly, there are cheaper options to get Lifetime, but if you spend that much dough, you’ll get a heartier channel lineup.
If you’d rather spend $7.99–$17.99/mo. for one of Hulu’s on-demand streaming plans, you can add Lifetime Channel for an extra $6.99 a month.
Lifetime channel on Roku
Lifetime movies and shows are not included with the purchase of a Roku streaming device, unfortunately.
You have to download the Lifetime app or subscribe to Lifetime Movie Club and download the app to watch Lifetime on Roku.
What’s the best way to watch Lifetime?
Whether you pick Philo for affordable livestreaming and unlimited cloud DVR storage or Sling TV to get Lifetime and add on the Lifestyle Extra package for LMN and more, it’s easy to stream Lifetime content you crave.
If you’re cool to spend a little extra money for premium TV, DIRECTV’s Ultimate package offers a great channel lineup with Lifetime Channel and LMN.
Whatever your choice, sign up and start binge-watching today.
Lifetime channel FAQ
What’s the difference between Lifetime and Lifetime Movie Network?
Lifetime Movie Network—often referred to as LMN—is Lifetime’s sister channel and it’s there to deliver movies to viewers 24/7. The Lifetime channel breaks up the daily roster with original and syndicated fictional shows and reality TV programs.
Is the Lifetime channel on Amazon Prime?
The Lifetime Channel isn’t “on” Amazon Prime, but you can rent hundreds of Lifetime Channel movies and shows if you have Prime Video.
How much is the Lifetime channel app?
The Lifetime Channel app is free to download, but you must have a TV provider subscription to use it.
Can you watch live TV on Lifetime app?
You can watch Lifetime live on the Lifetime app if you have a TV provider login.
How many Lifetime movies are there?
There are too many Lifetime movies to count. If we had to venture a guess, it’d be somewhere around 500. But don’t expect it to stop there. In fact, this holiday season, the channel is dropping a flurry of new holiday movies in addition to other flicks with a variety of themes.
What is the most popular Lifetime movie?
Lifetime Channel is popular and its titles appeal to a wide range of fans, from those who like romance to true crime fanatics. By genre, here are a couple of top favorites.
Currently, it looks like falling in love takes the top slot with Blue Lagoon: The Awakening, about two high school students who get smitten while stranded on an island. You have to find something to do while you’re awaiting rescue, right?
The number two slot gets a little more creepy with A Secret Adoption, where A-list celebs Will Ferrell and Kristen Wiig jump into the Lifetime realm to play a couple who take in a pregnant woman so they can adopt her unborn child.
Are all Lifetime Christmas movies the same?
We’re not going to lie—there are a lot of similarities between Christmas Lifetime movies.
Don’t be surprised to find a woman escaping the chaos of the big city to revisit her hometown where she finds new wineries, old friends—sometimes enemies—and, of course, romance. And it all happens around the Christmas holiday.
It’s not all totally predictable. Holiday themes also include ghost stories, musicals, and seasonal pageants. Prepare to feel as warm and fuzzy as that blanket you’re wrapped up in.
Methodology
Our holiday experts have spent hundreds of hours watching seasonal movies across a multitude of platforms to bring you the best recommendations. For more on our research process, head over to How We Rank.
