GoKawiilJoe Maring / Android Authority
You don’t have to pay for YouTube to use it, but there’s no doubt about the benefits of doing so. YouTube Premium offers an ad-free experience, loads of useful time-saving features, and convenience boosts if you use it across multiple devices. Oh, and YouTube Music Premium is available, too. Clearly, Premium invites a “premium” experience compared to the free tier, but has paying for this privilege become a necessity?
My colleague Joe Maring argues in a recent piece that “free YouTube no longer makes any sense” given the platform’s rise of ad length and frequency, but do you agree? Or, better yet, what does your wallet think?
We ran a survey to see how many of our readers pay for YouTube in 2026; you can view the results below. Over 2,900 readers voted on this poll, and an overwhelming majority is leaning towards one answer in particular. Around 65% of the vote, nearly two-thirds of respondents, “refuse to pay for YouTube.” Given the comments included in Joe’s article, plenty of readers are not giving Google any cash out of principle.
“YouTube has a better chance of seeing god than they do of me ever paying them for YouTube,” writes reader freejazz38.
Commenter jimfeatherstone1 offers a similar, albeit slightly less dramatic view. I’ll tell you why I won’t pay. I’m tired of giving my money to these money grubbing snakes! Then there’s the other non-ad-related issue plaguing YouTube: the quality of modern content. Reader diggydog01 comments: Paid YouTube sucks too, you know. At the end of the day, all of the “content” their obsolete recommendations/search algorithms shove down your throat is just sponsored shill videos and often literal TV-style commercials – which still have the audacity to pack over half their runtime with additional in-video ad reads and self-promotion. It’s like paying to watch the Home Shopping Network, if the home shopping network stopped every 2 minutes to run extra commercials for other products in the middle of their infomercial. Others opt for non-Premium fixes to these issues and skirt YouTube’s other annoyances by using third-party tools, such as ad-blocking apps and third-party YouTube apps. In a January survey, we found that a large share of respondents also preferred alternative apps to the official YouTube client.
However, not everyone sees YouTube Premium as a terrible investment. Notably, around 29% of respondents pay for YouTube Premium — that’s still a fairly large portion paying $13.99/month at the time we ran this survey. Like Joe, plenty of our readers see it as a worthy trade. Reader julius.paz writes: YouTube Premium has been one of my best investments. I use it for everything: learning how to fix things, watching documentaries, and enjoying great movies. The ad-free experience is a game-changer and YouTube Music is my go-to in my man cave loft and during my driving. It’s a great way to stay informed and entertained without having to deal with the constant stress of the daily news and negativity. And like the famous phrase: “You’ll get what you pay for” and probably even worse if you don’t pay anything. Commenter sonomasenior highlights that users can save by paying for the annual Premium subscription, stripping around $28 in yearly payments (at the time of this survey) from one’s bill.
Interestingly, just 3% of readers pay for YouTube Premium Lite, while another 3% are not paying for YouTube yet, but are “going to.”
Tell us: Are you still planning to pay for YouTube?
Joe Maring / Android Authority
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