Which countries have the cheapest Netflix subscriptions?

While it may be increasingly losing market share to its many competitors, Netflix remains the most popular streaming service in 2023. The subscription fee reflects this, with the Standard Plan now costing $15.49 per month in the US. But this pricing isn’t the same in other parts of the world, and we don’t just mean an exchange rate difference. Netflix will have done its research to capture the right demographic based on spending power in each region, meaning the equivalent cost of the plans can vary pretty significantly across the globe. We’ll lay out some examples of Netflix prices over different countries, as well as give you insights as to whether you can take advantage of this.

How much does Netflix cost around the world?

We’ve compiled a list of Netflix pricing in a number of countries from various regions of the globe. Every country has a Standard Plan, which has unlimited ad-free movies and TV shows, as well as the option to download content, and support for streaming on more than one device. They all also have a Premium Plan, which tends to offer extras like more supported devices and downloads, plus Ultra HD resolution.

It gets a little more complicated as a comparison after this. Most countries have a Basic Plan, usually characterized by the same streaming options as the Standard Plan but on only one device. Other countries, such as the US, don’t have the basic plan, but it does have an ad-supported version of the standard plan at a lower rate. To keep things simple, we’ve bundled these two types of plans together in the table below.

There are also a handful of countries that have a separate Mobile Plan for use on a phone or tablet. This plan tends to be cheaper than all of the other types of plans. However, we’ve omitted it for the purpose of this comparison.

With those explainers out of the way, we’ve broken down how Netflix prices vary over countries in the table below. All prices are converted from the local currency into USD at the exchange rate as of March 5, 2024. We’ve organized them in order of the Standard Plan price, cheapest to most expensive.

You’ll have noticed that this is a non-exhaustive list, as we’re just trying to give you an idea of how Netflix prices change over countries around the world. Netflix is currently available in more than 190 countries, with only China, North Korea, Syria, Russia, and Crimea not offering the service.

As you can see, the country with the cheapest Netflix subscription is Pakistan. The Standard Plan is a mere $2.86 per month, which is almost free compared to many parts of the world. This speaks to the spending power of the residents, and it’s also indicative of the value of the Pakistani Rupee, which has fallen significantly against the US dollar in the last year or two.

Countries in South America, Asia, and Africa are all significantly cheaper than Europe and North America. Argentina has quickly moved up the list due to the high inflation rate there, making the service cheaper when measured in US dollars.

The US takes the crown as the most expensive country for a Netflix subscription on our list, which is depressing but not unsurprising. The service is dominated by US-centric content, and the consumer disposable income is high in America. France is actually more expensive than the US when it comes to the basic plan, but it isn’t ad-supported there.

Can I use a VPN on Netflix to save money?

One of the many perks of a VPN is that it can spoof your location. Your internet connection is rerouted through a server in the region of your choosing, making it appear as if the IP address you are accessing an online service from is in that region. Does this mean that you could sit at home in the US and use a VPN to sign up for Netflix in Pakistan and pay just a fraction of the monthly cost?

Technically, you probably can, but it wouldn’t be straightforward. Firstly, Netflix is pretty good at blocking the IP address of VPN providers. Many of them don’t have any servers that can beat the Netflix filter, but some of the top ones, like ExpressVPN and NordVPN do. However, your IP address isn’t the only thing that would have to check out in terms of your residence in the remote country. You may need a credit or debit account from that country or a regional Netflix gift card to make payment. You may also need to provide a local phone number, so that would have to be spoofed as well.

Even if you feel you can overcome these hurdles, we don’t recommend attempting to do it. Whether it could actually be considered illegal or not is questionable — obtaining a benefit by deception is the definition of fraud in some jurisdictions —  but you would almost certainly be in breach of Netflix’s terms of service. You may manage to evade detection for a while, but Netflix does take steps to avoid being played like this, and if you’re discovered, your account will almost certainly be canceled. If Netflix gets snippy about account sharing, it really won’t like you trying to subvert its payment structures.

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