topic Re: What exactly am I paying for? in Sky Stream

What exactly am I paying for?

RussLeighton — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 08:58:29 GMT

Hello,

I wanted to start a discussion on Sky Stream, it's content and costs. Perhaps to help anyone who's considering purchasing it.

I have two pucks, one in the living room and one in a bedroom, the cost is £27 per month which includes Sky Essentials, Netflix, Ad Skipping and Whole Home. I've had Stream for 6 months and I'm struggling to see the value or the USP of Stream v's taking an Amazon Fire Stick or Fire Cube which in essense delivers the same for £0 monthly cost. Yes, you have to pay for the ad skipping on the apps such as ITV etc and Netflix at £7 per month. So I could move to an Amazon device for £7 per month by just taking Netflix.

What am I missing here, why am I paying for Stream at £27 and what is the Stream USP?

Thanks in advance on the discussion.

Re: What exactly am I paying for?

MarkGoldsmith — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 09:09:01 GMT

@RussLeighton wrote:
Hello,

I wanted to start a discussion on Sky Stream, it's content and costs. Perhaps to help anyone who's considering purchasing it.
I have two pucks, one in the living room and one in a bedroom, the cost is £27 per month which includes Sky Essentials, Netflix, Ad Skipping and Whole Home. I've had Stream for 6 months and I'm struggling to see the value or the USP of Stream v's taking an Amazon Fire Stick or Fire Cube which in essense delivers the same for £0 monthly cost. Yes, you have to pay for the ad skipping on the apps such as ITV etc and Netflix at £7 per month. So I could move to an Amazon device for £7 per month by just taking Netflix.

What am I missing here, why am I paying for Stream at £27 and what is the Stream USP?

Thanks in advance on the discussion.

The USP of the platform is that Sky acts as a content aggregator for all the broadcast channels and the major third party apps. For example if you decide to use a Fire Stick and subscribe separately to third party apps, you would have to curate individual watchlists on each app with the shows you want to watch, whereas Sky allows this functionality as part of their platform allowing you to only have to manage one playlist/watchlist across all the various streaming apps. For subscribers of multiple services its makes it easier to decide what you want to watch and launch it directly rather than you having to open an app, and then look to see if there is anything you want to watch, and perhaps deciding to exit the app and open another one.

To be honest I'd probably say Sky Stream is more a budget version of something like an Apple TV box as compared to an Amazon Fire Stick as there is much more similarity in the functionality between those 2 devices than between a stream puck and a fire stick.

Re: What exactly am I paying for?

nmbailey — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 09:49:43 GMT

I will be asking myself the same question come renewal time. I do like the Sky Stream remote though - I find the Firestick one too small

Re: What exactly am I paying for?

TimmyBGood — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 10:46:50 GMT

@RussLeighton wrote:

What am I missing here, why am I paying for Stream at £27 and what is the Stream USP?

Access to a comprehensive live linear channel EPG.

Yes, that's also available through a Now subscription into an app, but Sky has had those products in parallel for a long time.

Where live content isn't being consumed, the value proposition of any such service becomes dubious.

Re: What exactly am I paying for?

Timelord2018 — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 10:50:36 GMT

Considering the package Sky Essentials which basically is just Sky Atlantic, Discovery Pay channels and some basic Sky Sports channels then mostly Sky's Original drama catalogue is what your paying for , I don't think it's good value personally.

Re: What exactly am I paying for?

2muchTV — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 14:24:29 GMT

What exactly am I paying for?

Good question, but for myself I had to ask the question, what do I actually watch?

My experience with Sky TV subscriptions was FOMO, but since auditing what I and family actually watch, I discovered we were paying for stuff we never watched. I like Sky's UI and integration of channels but not worth it IMHO.

When I originally moved to Now TV it was just for Sports as that's the only thing I watched.

However, I took up a Now TV offer of £5 for Cinema and £5 for Entertainment. So pleased I took up the offers as I have found 1 or 2 movies worth watching per month and Sky Entertainment has a number of 4K nature documentaries, which I love.

While cheaper subscriptions for Netflix with a Sky subscription were a great selling point for me, I don't miss Netflix. I took a 1 month UHD subscription over Christmas to binge watch season 5 of Stranger Things. I lost interest in it and didn't even bother to watch all the episodes before my subscription lapsed.

For myself, Now TV is currently worth the money, and don't see the point of paying for channels I don't watch.

Re: What exactly am I paying for?

Timelord2018 — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 10:37:41 GMT

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