What is Paramount Plus? Price, content, and everything else you need to know

CBS All Access, we hardly knew ye. The streaming service launched almost a decade ago, but it morphed quickly into a more significant competitor in early 2021 for Netflix, Disney Plus, Max, Peacock, and others. The service is now called Paramount Plus (branded as “Paramount +”), and it uses the vast content library of Paramount Pictures and ViacomCBS’s TV properties to its advantage.

As you will see, the name change is more than just cosmetic. Paramount Plus offers tons of new and exclusive content. A lot are revivals or spin-offs of its most famous properties. It also provides something for film fans.

If you want to jump in head first, you can sign up for a free 7-day trial. 

What is Paramount Plus?

This is the renamed streaming service from ViacomCBS that was previously known as CBS All Access. It has all of the content of CBS All Access, plus a ton of new and upcoming shows and movies. The company first announced the name change back in September 2020.

Why change the name, anyway?

CBS was previously a part of its parent company Viacom (which owned Paramount Pictures and many cable TV networks). In 2006, the companies split in two. In October 2014, CBS launched its All Access streaming service to offer live streaming of its network programs and original programming.

In late 2019, Viacom and CBS merged again into one company, dubbed ViacomCBS. The company soon announced that the CBS All Access service would be rebranded as Paramount Plus because the Paramount name is more well-known internationally.

How much is Paramount Plus?

You can subscribe, with ads, for $4.99 a month or $49.99 a year. There’s also a no-ad option that costs $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year. The no-ad option adds a few other extra features, including 4K, HDR, and Dolby Vision support for select shows and movies. The $9.99 monthly plan also adds offline viewing, letting you download up to 25 titles at a time. Finally, you can livestream from your local CBS station with the $9.99 a month plan.

If you have already signed up for the previous $5.99 a month, or $59.99 annual, plan under the old CBS All Access, you will be grandfathered into Paramount Plus and can continue to stream live content from your CBS station. However, if you cancel, you’ll lose access to this grandfathered privilege for good and will have to switch to one of the two new plans.

Bundle with Showtime for a special price

You can also bundle Paramount Plus with ViacomCBS’s pay cable network Showtime for a special price. Paramount Plus with ads plus Showtime costs $11.99 a month. The Ad-Free plan plus Showtime is also currently available for $11.99 a month. You can also get annual plans with Paramount Plus and Showtime for $119.99 a year. Best of all, you can access all of Showtime’s content from within the Paramount Plus app.

Can I get Paramount Plus for free?

ViacomCBS has established a standard 7-day free trial for Paramount Plus. Also, T-Mobile and grandfathered Sprint postpaid wireless customers and T-Mobile Home Internet customers can get one year of the ad-based Paramount Plus plan for free.

Beyond that, ViacomCBS has confirmed that each account on the service will support up to six individual profiles. You can share your login and password with up to five of your family and friends, and each one can have their own profile, so they can access the service for free and see their own content.

Paramount Plus on Pluto TV

While there isn’t a free tier plan on Paramount Plus, there is an alternative (sort of). ViacomCBS also owns Pluto TV, the completely free live and on-demand streaming service. It offers lots of the same library of content found on Paramount Plus on its over 100 channels. In fact, Pluto TV launched a channel, Paramount Plus Picks. It will offer select content from the streaming service, including episodes of shows that are usually Paramount Plus exclusives.

How does it work?

Paramount Plus works like other streaming services: Log in to the service via your PC, mobile phone, tablet, or another connected device. Select the show or movie you want to watch and start streaming. If you are signed up for the $9.99 a month plan, you can also select Live TV to stream from your local CBS affiliate channels.

If you’re subscribed to the cheaper ad-supported plans, you will occasionally see advertisements as you stream. The more expensive ad-free plan will allow you to stream without those commercials. However, streaming from the Live TV option will still show ads, no matter what plan you choose.

Is it worth it?

As usual, the answer to that is “it depends.” If you sign up for the $9.99 a month plan, you will be able to access lots of live sports events, including live streaming of NFL football games. If you are a Star Trek fan, the service will be your one-stop place to watch both classic, new and upcoming content from the sci-fi franchise.

There will also be lots of other library content to stream from Paramount Pictures, CBS, and the Viacom family of cable TV networks (Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, MTV, and others). If you are a fan of shows and movies from those sources, signing up for the service might be worth it. However, the new and exclusive content for Paramount Plus will take a year or two to debut, so if that’s all that you want to watch, you may want to hold off and save your money. However, there’s nothing stopping you from canceling Paramount Plus after giving it a shot.

Where is it available?

The service has launched in the following countries:

• Argentina
• Austria
• Bolivia
• Canada
• The Caribbean
• Chile
• Colombia
• Costa Rica
• Denmark
• Dominican Republic
• Ecuador
• El Salvador
• Finland
• France
• Germany
• Guatemala
• Honduras
• Ireland
• Mexico
• Nicaragua
• Norway
• Panama
• Paraguay
• Peru
• South Korea
• Sweden
• Switzerland
• United Kingdom
• United States
• Uruguay
• Venezuela

In Australia, it is available under the 10 All Access brand name. 

What devices does Paramount Plus support?

Officially, ViacomCBS has confirmed that the service will support PC web browsers at ParamountPlus.com. It will also have apps for iOS and Android devices. Here’s a list of the devices that currently support that service.

• Computer or mobile web
• iPhone or iPad
• Android phone or tablet
• Apple TV (4th generation or later)
• Android TV
• Amazon Fire TV or Kindle
• Portal TV
• Roku
• Xfinity Flex
• LG TV
• Samsung TV
• Vizio TV
• Xbox
• PlayStation 4

Other Paramount Plus features

We have already mentioned that the service will reserve some of its extra features for the paid $9.99 a month tier. That includes streaming select movies and shows in 4K resolution, HDR, and Dolby Vision. Those movies and TV shows will have a special badge on their info pages. Supported 4K devices include:

• Select Roku models
• Amazon Fire TV (4K Stick, Cube)
• Android TV
• Apple TV 4K HDR (5th Gen)

Downloads of movies and shows for no-ad subscribers are supported on iOS and Android devices for offline viewing. Also, you can access up to three concurrent streams on one account.

Parental controls

The service also has parental controls for keeping certain content away from young children. Here’s how they work:

1. Go to your Paramount Plus account page and then scroll down to the Parental Controls section. The feature is turned off by default, so you will have to click or tap on the toggle to turn it on. You will then have to type in your account password to proceed.
2. Type in a four-digit PIN code that will appear below the Parental control toggle. 
3. You should see a list of content ratings. Tap or click on the content rating that you want to require typing in the PIN to watch. You also have an optional toggle to lock out live TV streams. This might be helpful since some live content, particularly from the Big Brother Live Streams, has mature content.
4. Finally, click or tap “Save” to save your parental control settings.

In addition, when you set up a new profile, you can set it up for Kids Mode. Anyone watching from that profile will automatically see content specifically for younger audiences. You can set it up so that the Kids Mode profile shows content for really young children (TV-Y) or older kids.

What’s on Paramount Plus?

Paramount Plus has all the exclusive shows and content available on CBS All Access, including its original series like The Good Fight, Star Trek Discovery, The Stand, and others. It also has a ton of library content from Paramount Pictures, CBS, and the many Viacom cable TV networks. You can watch movies like all the Indiana Jones films, The Mission Impossible movies, and more.

• The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run – The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run is a Paramount Plus exclusive movie. It features the title character, and his best friend Patrick Star, heading to the Lost City of Atlantic City on a new adventure.
• Kamp Koral: SpongeBob’s Under Years – Kamp Koral: SpongeBob’s Under Years is the first spin-off series from SpongeBob SquarePants. It features a 10-year-old version of SpongeBob and all of his friends having fun at Kamp Koral.
• The Real World Homecoming: New York – MTV helped to launch the reality show genre with The Real World series. In the first season, seven young people were put into a New York City loft in 1992. In this reunion series on Paramount Plus, those same people get back together to see how things have changed for them and how they may still be getting real with each other. You can also watch another season of the series, with the cast members of The Real World: Los Angeles, with another reunion series with the cast of the New Orleans season planned for April.
• Mayor of Kingstown – Jeremy Renner stars in this series about the behind-the-scenes men who run a town that’s almost completely centered on servicing nearby prisons.
• 1883 – This prequel to the hit series Yellowstone on the Paramount Network cable TV channel takes place in the late 19th century, as the grandfather and grandmother of Yellowstones’s main character head from Texas to Montana.
• Halo – Originally in development for the Showtime cable network, the sci-fi series based on Microsoft’s hit Xbox game franchise is now a Paramount Plus title.
• iCarly -The Nickelodeon kids sitcom is back but in a more grown-up version, on Paramount Plus.
• Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – This is the best of the three Star Trek live-action shows that are currently on Paramount Plus. It’s a prequel to the original Trek series of the 1960s, with many of the same characters.

Exclusive and upcoming films

Paramount also releases a few films on Paramount Plus just 45 days after they debut in theaters. It has already done so with A Quiet Place II and has done the same for 2022’s Scream and Jackass Forever. The Paw Patrol Movie was released day-and-date in theaters and Paramount Plus in August 2021. Other Paramount movies, like the upcoming Top Gun: Maverick debuted on Paramount Plus in late 2022. 

In addition, ViacomCBS has set up a deal with the Epix pay-cable service. That allows Paramount Plus subscribers to access over 2,500 films from the Epix library. Also, new films from MGM, including the latest James Bond film No Die To Die, stream on the service after their theatrical and Epix pay-cable runs.

In addition Paramount Plus original movies like Beavis and Butt-Head Do the Universe, Orphan: First Kill, Jerry & Marge Go Large, Teen Wolf: The Movie, and more have made the streamer a competitive option.

Paramount Plus channels

You can also watch “live” channels on Paramount Plus. Some of these work much like Pluto TV Channels, in that they a programmed compilations of Paramount Plus titles, playing in rotation.

The CBS channel, for example, isn’t really playing the CBS channel you’d find on cable TV. Instead, it features next-day streaming of new shows along with a library of titles including full seasons of current network titles like Ghosts, The Equalizer, and Young Sheldon, as well as classics like The Love Boat, Family Ties, I Love Lucy, Frasier, and The Twilight Zone, and late-night and daytime content like The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and The Bold and the Beautiful.

The live TV hub does feature some traditional channels, like your local CBS affiliate, available to premium subscribers only. You can also get a live feed of CBS News in the news channel hub.

The full list of Paramount Plus Channels and channel hubs is as follows:

• CBS
• Comedy Central
• Nickelodeon
• MTV
• BET
• Smithsonian Channel
• Live TV
• Sports
• Movies
• News

Paramount Plus vs the competition

Because this service is an expansion of the previous CBS All Access, Paramount Plus will likely lag behind many of the top-tier streaming services in terms of content. 

Below we’ve compared Paramount Plus to a few other leading streaming services on the market. This way, you can be sure of your decision before spending your hard-earned money.

Netflix

No discussion of streaming services would be complete without talking about Netflix. It has a deep library of older movies and TV shows and a constantly growing amount of original content.

The cheapest Netflix plan costs $6.99 a month, but has ads, is restricted to 720p resolution, and doesn’t even include all of the service’s content.  That’s just $2 higher than the most affordable Paramount Plus plan, which has support for up to 4K streams,  To stream in full HD on Netflix, you’re looking at $14.49 a month, which is several dollars less than Paramount Plus and to stream in 4K on Netflix, you will have to spend $19.99 a month.

Not all of Netflix’s original content is of high quality, but there will always be something new to watch. It will take a while for Paramount Plus to match Netflix’s content. However, there’s no doubt the prices of Netflix’s plans are much higher.

Disney Plus

Paramount Plus will already have a lot of great children’s content right out of the gate, thanks to its  Nickelodeon library of shows and movies.  Disney Plus also offers a lot of movies and shows for kids and the whole family, and its library of content is perhaps of an even higher quality.

Disney Plus also has a growing list of completely original content, including hit shows The Mandalorian and WandaVision, with more to come. It remains to be seen if the upcoming original content for Paramount Plus will yield shows as popular as those two series.

At just $7.99 a month (with ads), Disney Plus is currently one of the most affordable streaming services out there. If you want even more TV shows or sports content, you can get a great bundle deal of Disney Plus, Hulu, and ESPN Plus for just $12.99 a month. Paramount Plus does offer a variety of content for all audiences, but at prices that are lower than the Disney Plus-Hulu-ESPN Plus bundle.

Peacock

NBCUniversal’s Peacock is perhaps the closest to Paramount Plus in terms of its content. Peacock has some great shows to stream, particularly on the comedy side like The Office, Parks and Recreation, and more. It also offers a selection of live news, sports, and a growing amount of original content.

Peacock’s ad-supported free tier has more than 13,000 hours of classic and modern tv shows to stream, and for $4.99 a month (about the same as Paramount Plus’s upcoming ad-supported plan), you can bump that up to 20,000 hours. Honestly, it’s hard to beat free, and perhaps ViacomCBS will offer a free ad-supported tier in the future.

Paramount Plus – Other FAQs