Sling Freestream: Is Sling TV Really Free?

What is Sling Freestream?

Sling Freestream is Sling TV’s answer to ad-supported free streaming services like Pluto TV, Tubi, and Xumo Play. It features a mix of live and on-demand content, including TV shows, movies, kids, news, and sports programming. It’s also completely free—you don’t even have to provide a credit card number or login info.

As with the other free streamers, the selection on Sling Freestream is a rando assortment of older movies and TV shows with unskippable commercial breaks. You’re not going to find the latest Marvel flicks or cable hits like Mayans for free, but sci-fi cheese like Mega Snake and all 110 episodes of ’90s biker drama Renegade? Sling Freestream has ’em.

Jump to:

• How to watch Sling Freestream
• Sling Freestream channels by category

How to watch Sling Freestream

You can access Sling Freestream by going to sling.com on a web browser (Chrome, Edge, or Safari only) or downloading the Sling TV app to your streaming device (like Amazon Fire TV, Android, LG TV, Roku, Samsung TV, or Xbox).

Select “Freestream” then ” Stream Free,” and you’ll be taken to a My TV page displaying rows upon rows of free TV shows and movies. By selecting the Guide tab, you’ll see a grid of “live” channels (with the exception of some news channels, the shows and movies are on a perpetual loop).

You can also select On Demand from the tabs menu, where you’ll be greeted with many TV and movie titles that you can stream anytime you want. The last tab, DVR, is where you’ll be prompted to create an account if you’d like to record up to 10 hours of a live broadcast.

Under the Rentals tab, you can pay to watch more recent movies than the Sling Free selection offers. The average rental fee is around $4 per movie, though some just-released studio films go for $20 (just wait a few weeks—the price will come down). Rentals don’t feature ads, BTW.

Sling Freestream channels

Sling Freestream features over 400 channels, which are roughly a 50/50 split of live-looping shows and on-demand-only content (most of the live channels also have on-demand movies and TV shows).

Some of the channels—which could be more accurately called content hubs—are familiar, like AMC and Discovery. But you’ve probably never heard of most of them, like Choppertown or Kabillion.

Between those channels, Sling Freestream streams over 5,000 TV shows and movies. You won’t see everything from cable network channels, though: AMC Presents is mostly reruns of The Walking Dead and Fear the Walking Dead but no Better Call Saul, and when you click on Paramount+ with SHOWTIME, it only gives you a couple of on-demand options. Hey, you get what you pay for.

These are the channels included with Sling Freestream:

Comedy, drama, and reality TV shows

• A&E (on demand)
• AMC+ (on demand)
• BET (live, on demand)
• Bon Appetit (live, on demand)
• BRB Travel + Food (live, on demand)
• Buzzr (live, on demand)
• Choppertown (live, on demand)
• CMT (live, on demand)
• Comedy Central (live, on demand)
• Curiosity Stream (on demand)
• DangerTV (live, on demand)
• The Design Network (live, on demand)

• DogTV (on demand)
• GustoTV (live, on demand)
• HSN (live, on demand)
• Jimmy Kimmel Live (on demand)
• MTV (live)
• Nosey (live, on demand)
• QVC (live, on demand)
• So Yummy! (live, on demand)
• STARZ (on demand)
• Tastemade (live)
• True Crime Now (live, on demand)
• VOGUE (live, on demand)

Comedy, drama, and cult movies

• AMC Thrillers (live)
• Dove Channel (on demand)
• Favesome (live, on demand)
• The Film Detective (live, on demand)
• FilmRise (live, on demand)
• FlixFling (on demand)
• FlixFling Now (live, on demand)
• Glewed TV (live, on demand)
• Gravitas Movies (on demand)
• Hallmark Movies Now (on demand)

• HereTV (on demand)
• Hi-Yah! (live, on demand)
• IFC Films Picks (live, on demand)
• Lone Star (live, on demand)
• Magnolia Pictures (on demand)
• Maverick Black Cinema (on demand)
• Pac Films (on demand)
• Screambox TV (live, on demand)
• Shout! Factory TV (live, on demand)
• UP Faith & Family (on demand)

Sports, fitness, and outdoors

• ACC Digital Network (live, on demand)
• beIN Sports Extra (live, on demand)
• Barstool Sports (live, on demand)
• Boxing TV (live, on demand)
• Canela Deportes (live, on demand)
• Draft Kings Basketball (live, on demand)
• ESPN OnDemand (on demand)
• eSports Network (live, on demand)
• Fight Network (live, on demand)
• Grokker (on demand)

• Outside TV+ (live, on demand)
• Outside TV Features (on demand)
• Pac-12 Insider (live, on demand)
• PlayersTV (live, on demand)
• Pickle TV (live, on demand)
• PokerGO (live, on demand)
• Sports Grid (live, on demand)
• Women’s Sports Network (live, on demand)
• USA Today Sports (live)
• Zona TUDN (live, on demand)

News, entertainment, and information

• ABC News Live (live, on demand)
• Bloomberg Quicktake (on demand)
• CBSN (live, on demand)
• Cheddar News (live, on demand)
• FOX Weather (live, on demand)
• FS TV (live, on demand)

• Law & Crime Rewind (live, on demand)
• LiveNOW from FOX (live, on demand)
• Noticias Univision 24-7 (live, on demand)
• Sports News Highlights (live)
• The TMZ Channel (live, on demand)
• USA Today (live)

Kids and family

• Bob the Builder (live, on demand)
• Cartoon Network/Adult Swim (on demand)
• DuckTV (live, on demand)
• Pocket Watch (live, on demand)
• PW Kids (live)

• Ryan & Friends (live, on demand)
• Strawberry Shortcake (live, on demand)
• Teletubbies (live)
• Toon Goggles (live, on demand)
• Yippee Kids TV (live, on demand)

Sling Freestream’s channels, which are also accessible through paid Sling TV plans, are essentially samplers of what you’d get with a full subscription to Sling Orange, Sling Blue, or Sling Orange + Blue.

Consider Freestream an unlimited Sling TV free trial—you can get a taste of Sling’s interface. And if you like it but want a few more popular channels, you can order Sling for half off your first month.

Is Sling Freestream worth it?

Free is free, can’t argue with that. As long as you don’t set your expectations too high, Sling Freestream is decent gratis entertainment.

Just know that you’ll be frequently nudged to upgrade to a paid Sling TV plan—Sling Freestream is kind of like an open-ended free trial in place of the actual free trial period Sling TV occasionally offers.

Sling Free FAQ