The Best Student Discounts for Streaming: Pay Less With These Deals for College Students
Take advantage of these special discounts while you’re still in school—thank me later.
Students get exclusive discounts on streaming services
What’s the value of a college degree? Does it give you better job opportunities or broaden your academic horizons? None of that really matters—the important part is that it gets you a couple dollars off of subscription services. And those dollars add up!
I’ve scoured the web for the best student discounts in streaming and compiled this list of the ones that I think are worth taking.
BTW: Each streaming service handles its student discounts a little differently. Some only allow four years of savings, while others let you stay for as long as you’re enrolled (even if you graduate late).
And Amazon breaks the mold by offering discounts to all young adults, not just those attending university. So even if college isn’t your thing, Amazon can still indoctrinate young people into its ecosystem—I mean, give you a sweet discount. With no ulterior motives, of course.
Compare the best student discounts on streaming services
| Service | Promo price | Regular price | Duration | Ads? | Details | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Amazon Prime for Young Adults | $7.49/mo. | $11.98/mo. | Age 18–24 | Yes, but can be removed for +$2.99/mo. | Read More |
|
|
Amazon Prime Student | $7.49/mo. | $11.98/mo. | Up to 4 yrs. of study | Yes, but can be removed for +$2.99/mo. | Read More |
 |
Apple Music with Apple TV+ | $5.99/mo. | $10.99/mo. + $9.99/mo. | Up to 4 yrs. of study | No | Read More |
 |
Hulu (With Ads) | $1.99/mo. | $9.99/mo. | Duration of college enrollment | Yes | Read More |
|
|
Spotify Premium Student with Hulu (With Ads) | $5.99/mo. | $11.99/mo. + $9.99/mo. | Up to 4 yrs. of study | Yes | Read More |
 |
Max Basic With Ads | $4.99/mo. | $9.99/mo. | Duration of college enrollment | Yes | Read More |
 |
Paramount+ Essential | $5.99/mo. | $7.99/mo. | 4 yrs., even after graduation | Yes | Read More |
 |
Peacock Premium | $2.99/mo. | $7.99/mo. | 1 yr. | Yes | Read More |
Data effective as of post date.
Hulu (With Ads)
Data effective as of post date. Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change.
If you’re looking for Hulu’s student discount, you’ll have to make a choice. Do you want Spotify, too? Depending on your answer, you’ll be signing up for a different plan with different terms.
If you only want a Hulu subscription, you’ll be looking at $1.99 a month. That’s one of the cheapest streaming deals around, even if you have to put up with ads. And it lasts for the entire duration of your college enrollment, even if you take extra time to graduate. Of course, the flip side is that your subscription will end if you graduate early.
But if you’re more like me, you care more about Spotify than Hulu. Enter the poorly named Spotify Premium Student with Hulu (With Ads) bundle. The Hulu subscription still has those pesky ads, but the Spotify subscription doesn’t, and that’s essential for an all-night study sesh. I subscribed to the Spotify Premium Student deal back when I was in college, and it was only $4.99/mo.—I miss it every day.
Take it from this Gen Z elder, kids: Use the Spotify discount while you still can. I know, it’s my job to get you excited about TV, but listen, it doesn’t even matter if you utilize the Hulu subscription or not. A cheap Spotify Premium plan is so, so crucial.
Unfortunately, no matter which plan you sign up for, you won’t be able to combine this discount with other offers. That means you can’t pay to remove the ads, and you won’t be able to benefit from the Disney Bundle. In a world where the best experience involves accessing Hulu content through Disney+’s interface, the student discount might not be worth it.
Hulu student discounts
| Service | Promo price | Regular price | Duration | Promo trial | Ads? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hulu (With Ads) | $1.99/mo. | $9.99/mo. | Duration of college enrollment | 1 mo. free trial | Yes |
| Spotify Premium Student with Hulu (With Ads) | $5.99/mo. | $11.99/mo. + $9.99/mo. | Up to 4 yrs. of study | 1 mo. free trial |
Spotify: No Hulu: Yes |
Apple TV+
Data effective as of post date. Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change.
If you’re a part of Apple’s ecosystem, you’ll probably want to sign up for Apple’s student discount program.
But it’s a little tricky to find the Apple TV+ student discount. I couldn’t find it simply by looking at Apple TV+’s app, and Apple’s student discounts page wasn’t too much help, either.
The trick to getting discounted Apple TV+ is actually to sign up for Apple Music Student. As a longtime Spotify user, I deleted Apple Music from my iPad a long time ago, so it took me a minute to redownload the app. At first, I thought I was in the wrong place because I only saw my old iTunes library (I’ll never escape U2’s Songs of Innocence). But then I clicked on the Radio tab and saw a red banner advertising a free month of Apple Music.
Apple TV+ student discounts
| Service | Promo price | Regular price | Duration | Promo trial | Ads? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apple Music with Apple TV+ | $5.99/mo. | $10.99/mo. + $9.99/mo. | Up to 4 yrs. of study | 1 mo. free trial | No |
Regular Apple Music ($10.99/mo.) is usually billed separately from Apple TV+ ($9.99/mo.). But Apple Music Student combines the two with a much lower price tag. During the process, it may seem like you’re only signing up for Apple Music, but as long as you’re getting the discounted rate ($5.99/mo.), you’ll get Apple TV+ as well.
Since I graduated from college several years ago, I usually can’t get too far into the sign-up process for student discounts. But Apple’s verification process seems to work with any student login credentials, even for me, a long-graduated alum, so I’ve created a step-by-step guide to help you through this (frankly, confusing) process.
How to get discounted Apple TV+ as a college student with an iPad
- Download Apple Music from the App Store if you haven’t already. Open Apple Music.
- Click on the red “Get 1 month of free music” banner.
- If no banner shows up, click on the user icon in the top right to open the account menu.
- Then, click on “Get 1 Month Free.”
- When prompted, select “See All Plans.”
- Scroll down to “College Student.”
- Click on “Verify Student Status.”
- Make sure your Name, Birthday, Region, and School are correct. It’s okay if your Apple Account email doesn’t match your school email.
- If you’ve verified your student status in the past, you might skip this window and go right to Step 8.
- In the pop-up window, enter your school log-in credentials. For me, this was the same username and password I used for anything Cornell-related (e.g., email, class registration, etc.).
- Verify in the Apple payment window that you’re subscribing to Apple Music Student with a 1-mo. free trial and a $5.99/mo. charge.
- Note the renewal date if you plan on canceling before your 1st payment. You’ll need to cancel at least a day before that date.
- Follow the on-screen instructions to confirm your payment. For me, I double-click my power button to confirm app downloads.
- Download Apple TV+ on your favorite streaming device (iPad, Roku, Xbox, etc.) and log in with your Apple credentials.
Amazon Prime Video
Data effective as of post date. Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change.
Student discounts are all about timing. You’re only a student for a short portion of your adult life, so you should take all of the advantages you can while you’re still eligible.
Which is why it pains me that Amazon rolled out its Prime for Young Adults program, which is open to 18–24-year-olds, when I was 25. If they had just widened their definition of “young” a liiiittle further, I could have given you a much more in-depth look at Prime’s student perks. (I’m young! I’m Brat! Are we still doing Brat?)
But if you’re 18–24 years old or currently enrolled in college, you can do what I can’t. With Amazon Prime Student or Amazon Prime for Young Adults, you’ll get all of the perks that come with an Amazon Prime subscription: access to Prime Video, two-day shipping, GrubHub+ food delivery, Prime Gaming, and more. You’ll also get access to exclusive discounts on streaming service add-ons (listed below).
Amazon stands out from other student discount programs by letting customers choose an annual subscription (for $69.00/yr.) and remove ads (for $2.99/mo.) Now, we still hate that Amazon makes us pay extra to get rid of ads, but for some reason, other services force students to sit through ads no matter what. (The reason is greed, but that’s another conversation).
Streaming discounts for students with Amazon Prime
| Service | Promo price | Regular price | Duration | Ads? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon Prime for Young Adults | $7.49/mo. | $11.98/mo. | Aged 18–24 | Yes, but can be removed for +$2.99/mo. |
| Amazon Prime Student | $7.49/mo. | $11.98/mo. | Up to 4 yrs. of study | Yes, but can be removed for +$2.99/mo. |
| MGM+ | +$0.99/mo. | $6.99/mo. | Up to 1 yr. (w/ Prime Student) | No |
| Lifetime Movie Club | +$0.99/mo. | $4.99/mo. | Up to 1 yr. (w/ Prime Student) | No |
| ALLBLK | +$0.99/mo. | $6.99/mo. | Up to 1 yr. (w/ Prime Student) | No |
Paramount+
Data effective as of post date. Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change.
I don’t know if I would really recommend the Paramount+ student discount under normal conditions. While it is pretty sweet that you don’t have to re-verify your enrollment every year (dropouts, I’m looking at you), it sucks that you’re limited to Paramount+’s ad-supported tier. You won’t get the full lineup of live sports, live CBS, or SHOWTIME content. And $2.00/mo. isn’t that great of a discount.
Sometimes Paramount+ does offer student discounts on its superior SHOWTIME tier—like the March Madness 2025 deal that ends 4/8/25. And you didn’t hear it from me, but if you’re not eligible for a student discount, try validating anyway and then wait a few days. SheerID will send you a 20% discount code for one year of any annual plan, not just Essential monthly. It’s almost better to not be a student.
Max
Data effective as of post date. Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change.
Max is one of the only streaming services to use UNiDAYS as its validation service instead of SheerID. Rather than just something that runs in the background while you’re signing up, UNiDAYS is its own service, so you’ll have to create an account (ugh).
In theory, a UNiDAYS account will give you access to student discounts from other brands, too. I tried to pass as a student to get the specifics on their offerings, but sadly, they saw past my ruse.
Peacock
Data effective as of post date. Offers and availability may vary by location and are subject to change.
For some reason, Peacock’s student discount only lasts for a single year, so you won’t be able to benefit for your entire college career (unless you really cram a lot of credits into each semester). But that $2.99/mo. promo price is pretty compelling if you want access to a lot of new movies for cheap.
If you do decide to claim this deal, remember to cancel after a year to avoid any nasty surprises down the line.
Why you should trust us
CableTV.com has been helping customers make smart choices since 2007, so we’ve seen a lot of discounts come and go. As part of CableTV.com’s editorial team, I spend my time researching streaming services and keeping an accurate database of prices and terms. When possible, I test services myself, putting myself in the customer’s shoes so I can provide the best advice for grabbing the best deals.
For more on our history researching TV providers, check out How We Rank.
