Frndly TV is where a lot of people land the month a cable or satellite bill finally crosses the line. Its own plan data lists three tiers at $8.99, $10.99 and $12.99 a month, and paying yearly drops the effective rate to $6.99, $7.99 and $9.99. That is a sliver of what a traditional bundle costs. A low price only helps, though, if the channels fit your evenings. This guide breaks down the true cost of every tier and add-on, the situations where Frndly is a smart swap, and the ones where it will frustrate you inside a week.
Key Answers Before You Sign Up
Basic is $8.99 a month, Classic is $10.99 and Premium is $12.99. Billed yearly they are $83.88, $95.88 and $119.88, which works out to $6.99, $7.99 and $9.99 a month. Frndly’s plan data calls the middle tier “Standard”; most reviewers still say Classic.
Two reasons. Older pages predate the May 2025 increase, and newer ones quote the yearly rate divided by twelve. Before you trust any number, check which billing period it describes.
Classic for most homes. The extra two dollars over Basic buys HD, a second screen and unlimited DVR. Pick Premium only if three or four people watch at once, or you keep recordings for months.
Not in the published pricing: no equipment rental, broadcast surcharge or sports fee appears in the plan list. Sales tax can still be added depending on your state, so read the total on the checkout screen.
Live sports, national news networks and the big four broadcast networks. A few local stations appear in a handful of markets, but they are mostly independents rather than ABC, CBS, NBC or Fox.
The live Hallmark channels come with every tier. Hallmark’s on-demand service is a separate add-on at $8.99 a month or $79.99 a year, so it is not folded into Premium.
Roku announced the $185 million purchase in May 2025. In June 2026 Fox agreed to buy Roku, with closing expected in the first half of 2027 pending approvals. We found no announced Frndly price or channel change tied to either deal.
New subscribers have generally been offered a seven-day free trial. Offers change, so confirm it on the signup page, and put the end date in your calendar the day you start.
The Three Plans, Side by Side
Here is the part that surprises people: the channel list does not change from tier to tier. What you are really buying with each step up is picture quality, the number of screens that can run at once, and how long recordings survive. That makes the choice more about your household than your taste in shows.
- Every Frndly channel
- Live TV plus on-demand
- 72-hour lookback
- Standard definition only
- One screen at a time
- No cloud DVR
- Every Frndly channel
- HD picture
- Two screens at a time
- Unlimited cloud DVR
- Recordings kept 3 months
- 72-hour lookback
- Every Frndly channel
- HD picture
- Four screens at a time
- Unlimited cloud DVR
- Recordings kept 9 months
- 72-hour lookback
What you pay each month: monthly billing versus yearly billing
Figures come from the plan list on frndlytv.com. The yearly bar is the annual price divided by twelve; you pay the full yearly amount up front.
| Plan | Monthly | Yearly | Picture | Screens | Cloud DVR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | $8.99 | $83.88 (about $6.99/mo) | Standard definition | 1 | None |
| Classic | $10.99 | $95.88 (about $7.99/mo) | HD | 2 | Unlimited, kept 3 months |
| Premium | $12.99 | $119.88 (about $9.99/mo) | HD | 4 | Unlimited, kept 9 months |
When we lined up Frndly’s own plan list against recent roundups, we found the same plan quoted three ways. One is the monthly price ($8.99 for Basic). Another is the yearly price spread over twelve months ($6.99). The third is a stale figure from before the May 2025 increase ($7.99). All three have been correct at some point, which is why a shopper comparing two articles can believe one of them is wrong.
The yearly number is real money only if you commit to twelve months. If you might quit in three, the monthly price is your actual cost, and the yearly saving is a bet that you will stay.
Frndly has raised Basic by about a dollar at a time. The service launched around $5.99, moved to $6.99 in November 2021 when A+E channels arrived, to $7.99 in September 2023, and to $8.99 with the May 2025 increase (new subscribers saw it immediately; existing ones on May 15). Three increases in roughly four years is a steady pace, and a useful reason to think about locking a yearly rate.
Here is the detail most price roundups miss. When we compared the yearly prices reported after the September 2023 increase with the yearly prices on Frndly’s plan list today, they matched: $83.88, $95.88 and $119.88. The monthly prices rose in between; the yearly prices did not. That gap is the strongest practical argument for yearly billing, because it means committing to a year has so far protected subscribers from the most recent monthly increase.
Basic plan monthly price over time
Dates reflect Frndly’s announced increases as reported by trade and consumer outlets. Current pricing is $8.99 for Basic according to Frndly’s plan list.
If you would rather not read a full table, answer three questions. First, will more than one television ever play at the same time? If yes, Basic is out. Second, do you need recordings to outlast three months, or four people streaming at once? If yes, Premium; if no, Classic. Third, are you certain you will stay twelve months? If yes, pay yearly; if not, pay monthly until you are sure.
That short path sends most single-person households to Basic or Classic, most couples to Classic, and larger families with visiting grandchildren to Premium. It also keeps you from paying for capacity you will never fill, which is the most common way a budget service quietly stops being one.
Frndly’s plan list contains promotional packages tied to shopping events, and several price Premium billed yearly at $99 rather than the usual $119.88. That is a $20.88 difference. We cannot tell you whether one is live on the day you read this, so check the plans page before you pay the standard yearly rate for Premium, especially around major sale periods.
What Is Actually on the Channel Guide
Counts vary by source, from 50-plus to the low sixties, depending on whether on-demand channels and local sub-channels are counted. We use 50+ as the safe floor. What matters more than the count is the character of the lineup, because it is built around comfort viewing rather than breadth.
The anchor is Hallmark: the Hallmark Channel plus its two sister channels, including the mystery-focused one. Around it sit A&E, HISTORY and Lifetime, which arrived with the 2021 deal that also triggered the first price increase. Game Show Network, INSP, MeTV and The Weather Channel round out the names most subscribers recognize. Outdoor Channel and Heartland add rural and outdoors programming, and several free-to-air style channels such as Court TV and ION-branded services have been reported in recent lineups.
Frndly has dropped channels before. It lost Circle in January 2024 when that network ended its service, and it removed the Curiosity Channel the following month. A few outdoor-themed channels left in late 2023 while others arrived. None of these departures changed the plan price, which is worth knowing: the price tends to move on its own schedule, while the lineup shifts quietly underneath it.
This matters most if you are about to pay for a year. If one specific channel is your reason for subscribing, confirm it is in the guide on the day you buy, and check again at renewal. Do not rely on an older review that lists it.
In April 2024 Frndly announced local broadcast stations in six markets, one station per market, five independents and one CW affiliate. These are not ABC, CBS, NBC or Fox. If you happen to live in one of those markets you gain some local news, but treat it as a bonus, not a replacement for an antenna.
Add-Ons That Quietly Double the Bill
A $10.99 plan can turn into a $20 plan faster than people expect. Frndly sells optional channel and library packages that sit on top of any tier. They are well priced one at a time, and easy to stack until the “cheap” service costs what you were trying to escape.
| Add-on | Monthly | Yearly | Yearly saves | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hallmark+ | $8.99 | $79.99 | $27.89 | Households that finish the live Hallmark lineup and want the on-demand library |
| Great American Pure Flix | $9.99 | $89.99 | $29.89 | Faith-and-family movie viewers |
| Lifetime Movie Club | $5.99 | $59.99 | $11.89 | Fans of Lifetime-brand movies on demand |
| A&E Crime Central | $5.99 | $59.99 | $11.89 | True-crime viewers |
| HISTORY Vault | $5.99 | $59.99 | $11.89 | Documentary and history viewers |
| UP Faith & Family | $5.99 | $59.99 | $11.89 | Family-friendly faith programming |
While comparing sources we came across one review site that described a higher Frndly tier as bundling Hallmark’s streaming library. Frndly’s own plan list shows that library as its own separately priced package, and none of the three tiers is listed as including it. The live Hallmark channels are in every tier; the on-demand library is not. Upgrading from Classic to Premium to “get” it would cost you two dollars a month and deliver nothing of the kind.
If you want both, price them as two line items. Classic yearly plus Hallmark+ yearly comes to $175.87 a year, about $14.66 a month.
Mixing tiers and add-ons is where people lose track. These are the combinations we would actually price out, with the yearly versions converted to a monthly figure so you can compare them on one scale.
| Setup | How it’s billed | Total per year | Per month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic alone | Monthly | $107.88 | $8.99 |
| Classic alone | Yearly | $95.88 | $7.99 |
| Classic + Hallmark+ | Both yearly | $175.87 | $14.66 |
| Premium + Pure Flix | Both yearly | $209.87 | $17.49 |
| Premium + Hallmark+ | Both monthly | $263.76 | $21.98 |
Frndly Against What You Are Probably Paying Now
A fair comparison needs twelve months on the table, not the monthly figure that makes everything look manageable. Here is the full-year cost of Frndly next to the services people usually leave it for or leave to join it.
Twelve months of service, base price only
Frndly bars use the yearly prices in its plan list. Other services are approximate, built from recent published monthly base prices multiplied by twelve; their rates and fees change often, so confirm before comparing for a real decision.
| Service | Approx. monthly | Twelve months | Sports, news and locals? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Frndly Basic (yearly) | $6.99 | $83.88 | No |
| Frndly Classic (yearly) | $7.99 | $95.88 | No |
| Frndly Premium (monthly) | $12.99 | $155.88 | No |
| Sling Orange | $45.99 | $551.88 | ESPN, limited news |
| Sling Blue | $50.99 | $611.88 | News, locals in some markets |
| YouTube TV | $82.99 | $995.88 | Yes |
| DIRECTV Entertainment | $89.99 + fees | $1,079.88 + fees | Locals and ESPN, no regional sports |
Frndly Classic billed yearly costs about $984 less than twelve months of DIRECTV Entertainment at base price, and that is before DIRECTV’s fees. It is tempting to read that as a pure saving. It is not, because the two services sell different things. One is a few dozen comfort channels; the other is the full cable experience with sports and news. The honest framing is that the $984 is what you keep if the channels you give up are channels you rarely watch.
A practical test: list the ten channels you opened most last month. If seven or more are on Frndly’s lineup, the saving is mostly free money. If three or four are, you are cutting something you use.
Monthly prices hide how much television you actually watch, so try dividing instead. Say you watch one hour a day, thirty hours a month. Frndly Classic billed yearly at about $7.99 comes to roughly 27 cents an hour. At two hours a day it falls to about 13 cents. A $82.99 service at the same two hours a day costs around $1.38 an hour, and you would need to be watching a great deal more, or using sports and news you cannot get elsewhere, to make that the better value.
The reverse also holds. If you rarely watch more than a few hours a week, even Frndly is more than you need, and the free options in the last section may cover you. Cheap is only a bargain on programming you use.
Find Your Situation: What to Do and What to Watch For
Price pages rarely help because they assume everyone is shopping the same way. People actually arrive at Frndly from very different places, each with a different thing that can go wrong. Find the one that sounds like you.
Start with the bill, not the website. Pull the most recent one and write down every channel you opened in the last two weeks. Most households land on six to ten, and that list is the real product you need to replace. If it is mostly Hallmark, A&E, HISTORY, Lifetime, MeTV and game shows, Frndly covers it, and the math is dramatic: Classic billed yearly at $95.88 against more than a thousand dollars for a year of a base satellite package.
Two traps catch people here. First, if television is bundled with your internet, cancelling TV can raise the internet price when the bundle discount disappears. Ask for the internet-only price and get it in writing before you cancel anything. Second, satellite and some cable agreements carry early termination charges. Check your contract, because a cancellation fee can eat the first several months of savings. Keep the old service until your trial week is finished and you are sure the channels fit.
The best move for a tight budget is usually Classic billed yearly. At $95.88 you pay about $7.99 a month, which is $36 less than paying $10.99 monthly for twelve months. Basic billed yearly is cheaper still at $83.88, but it is standard definition on one screen with no cloud DVR, and on a big modern television the picture shows its age. For most people the extra $12 a year for HD and DVR is the better trade.
Two cautions. We found no published refund guarantee for yearly billing, so confirm the cancellation and refund terms in your account before you pay twelve months at once. And we found no senior-specific tier or discount in Frndly’s plan list; the low price is the discount. If a site tells you otherwise, check it against frndlytv.com.
Basic allows one stream at a time. If one person is watching in the living room and another switches on the bedroom set, the second screen is refused. It is a small thing that produces a large amount of irritation, and it is the main reason we steer couples away from Basic. Classic allows two streams. Premium allows four, which matters when grandchildren visit with tablets or an adult child is borrowing the login.
Cloud DVR softens the problem. On Classic and Premium you can record the show someone else wants while you watch something different, so you are not forced to watch simultaneously. That makes Classic work for many two-person homes that would otherwise assume they need Premium.
Then Frndly is probably the cheapest legitimate way to get it. The Hallmark Channel and its sister channels are in every tier, so you can start on Classic and pay nothing extra for the live lineup. The mistake to avoid is paying for the on-demand library by accident, or assuming a higher tier includes it. Hallmark’s streaming library is a separate $8.99 monthly add-on or $79.99 yearly, and you may not need it at all if you mostly watch the premiere schedule and the 72-hour lookback.
Here is a simple rule that has saved households money: run Classic alone for the first two months. If you find yourself reaching for older movies the live channels do not rerun, add the library then, and choose the yearly option only after you have used it enough to be sure.
Frndly carries The Weather Channel, which helps in storm season, but it is not a local newscast. A few local stations are included in a small number of markets, mostly independent stations rather than ABC, CBS, NBC or Fox. For most viewers that means your local news does not come through Frndly.
The cheapest fix is a digital antenna. It is a one-time purchase with no monthly fee, and it can pull in your local ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox stations free over the air, depending on how far you are from the transmitters and what stands between you and them. An antenna plus Classic yearly gives you locals and the Frndly lineup for roughly $8 a month in ongoing cost. Reception varies a lot by address, so ask a neighbor what works before buying.
Frndly is the wrong tool, and no tier changes that. There are no sports networks in the lineup. The sensible build is an antenna for the games that air on the broadcast networks, plus a sports-capable service only for the games it cannot reach. Sling Orange, at roughly $46 a month at recent published rates, carries ESPN, and YouTube TV carries the broad lineup at about $83 a month. Frndly can still sit beside either as a low-cost second service for the weeknight shows the household watches, but it will not replace them.
Everything Frndly delivers travels over your internet connection, so the TV is only as steady as the connection behind it. If your service drops in the evening or buffers while someone else streams, a cheaper TV bill will not feel like a win. Standard definition on Basic uses less bandwidth than HD, which is one honest reason to choose it on a weak connection.
If you are on satellite or fixed wireless internet, find out whether your plan carries a data allowance or slows down after heavy use, because a few hours of streaming a day adds up. Run your free trial in the evening, when networks are busiest, and watch for buffering. That is the real test, not a mid-afternoon check.
The ownership trail is worth understanding. Roku announced it would buy Frndly in May 2025 for $185 million, with $75 million of that tied to performance goals over two years. Roku said Frndly would stay available on other platforms, including Fire TV, Apple TV, Google TV, Samsung and Vizio. Then in June 2026, Fox announced a deal to buy Roku for about $22 billion, expected to close in the first half of 2027 and subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals. Frndly is part of what Roku owns, so it would travel with the deal.
We found no announced change to Frndly pricing or channels tied to either transaction. Still, new owners often revisit pricing. If you want protection, a yearly plan pins your rate for twelve months. In 2023, when Frndly raised prices, it let annual subscribers lock the earlier rate for a year, and that is a pattern worth remembering.
Frndly’s own plans page lists monthly and yearly versions of each tier plus the add-ons. If you sign up through a streaming device’s store, billing may run through that store instead, and we could not confirm that every package and promotion appears there. Before paying, compare what the device offers with what frndlytv.com/plans shows. If the yearly rate or a promotion is missing on the device, signing up on the website may be the better route, although you should confirm how your device then links to the account.
Three different time limits get mixed together. Every tier, including Basic, includes a 72-hour lookback that lets you watch recent broadcasts without recording. Classic adds unlimited cloud DVR with recordings kept three months. Premium keeps recordings nine months. If you mostly watch within a few days, Basic’s lookback already does most of the job. If you record a series and watch it across a season, three months can run out; a show recorded in January may be gone by April on Classic. That is when Premium earns its extra two dollars.
Frndly runs on Roku, Fire TV, Apple TV, Google TV, Samsung and Vizio televisions, plus phones, tablets and web browsers. Do the signup yourself on a computer, then test it on the actual television your parent will use, not on yours. Write the login down where they can find it. A channel guide that behaves like cable is the main reason older viewers settle in, so check that the guide opens quickly on their device before you leave. If the set is old and slow, a low-cost streaming stick is often what makes the experience work, not the subscription tier.
Eight Mistakes That Make a Cheap Service Expensive
Frndly is hard to overpay for, but not impossible. These are the errors that turn an $8 service into an unpleasant surprise, each with the quick fix.
A yearly plan saves $24 to $36, but only if you stay. The saving is not worth taking until the trial week is over. Fix: use the trial, then choose yearly with evidence in hand.
One stream means the second set simply will not play. The two-dollar upgrade to Classic costs less than the argument it prevents. Fix: count the screens that could realistically run at the same moment.
It does not. The library is a separate package on every tier. Fix: if you want it, add it deliberately and price the combined total.
Dropping cable TV can lift the internet price when the discount disappears, shrinking or erasing the saving. Fix: get the internet-only quote in writing first.
A trial is easiest to forget on Day 6. Fix: add a calendar alert for the day before it ends, and know where the cancel screen lives.
Each add-on is modest. Three of them are not. Fix: add one at a time, give it a month, and remove it if you did not open it.
Frndly’s price has moved up by a dollar at a time, and many pages never updated. Fix: treat frndlytv.com/plans as the final word, and read any other number as a rough guide.
Lineups change. Fix: open the guide and find your must-have channel before you pay, not after.
A Seven-Day Trial Plan That Settles the Question
Most people waste a free trial by watching one familiar show and hoping for the best. Use it like a checkup instead. Each day tests one thing that decides whether Frndly will hold up once you are paying.
- Day 1Sign up on the website, put the end date in your calendar, and install the app on the television you actually use. Note which plan the trial applies to, because it may default to a particular tier.
- Day 2Write down the ten channels you opened most last month and find each in the guide. Count the misses. More than three means a household that will feel the loss.
- Day 3Run two screens at once, one on the television and one on a phone, if your tier allows it. This tells you whether your connection handles it and whether Basic would have blocked you.
- Day 4Record a show and play it back the next day. Check that the recording is complete and that you can find it without help.
- Day 5Watch during your busiest evening hours and note any buffering, drops, or blurry stretches. This is the test that decides whether HD is worth trusting on your line.
- Day 6Find the cancel and plan-change screens in your account without cancelling. Knowing how to leave before you are tempted to is one of the best protections against unwanted charges.
- Day 7Decide. Pick the tier that matched your tests, and choose yearly only if you are confident you will stay twelve months. Otherwise stay monthly for a few cycles first.
When to Skip Frndly and What to Do Instead
None of these is on Frndly. Build around an antenna for the broadcast networks, and a larger service only if you must have cable news or sports channels. Trying to force Frndly into that role leads to an annual bill and a month of disappointment.
Frndly is built around family and classic-TV programming, not premium cable networks, and recent roundups list it without 4K. If you want premium movie libraries or the sharpest picture, you will need to look at larger services or standalone apps.
Before paying anything, check what you already get free. The Roku Channel has passed 500 free ad-supported channels in 2026, and other free services carry older shows and movies. These are not a replacement for Hallmark or Lifetime, but they can reduce how much paid programming you need, and they cost nothing to test.
Plan prices reflect the list published on frndlytv.com when this page was checked on October 15. Add-on prices and the Premium yearly promotional price come from the same plan list. Competitor figures are approximate, based on recent published base rates, and exclude taxes and fees. Frndly may charge state and local taxes depending on your location. Channel lineups and promotions change, and the seven-day free trial may not be offered to every customer. This page is independent and is not affiliated with Frndly TV, Roku or Fox. Confirm current pricing, trial terms, cancellation and refund terms directly with Frndly before you pay.
Key sources: frndlytv.com plan data · Associated Press and Variety reporting on the Fox–Roku agreement · TechHive/PCWorld and Cord Cutters News coverage of the Roku acquisition and Frndly price changes