Console subscriptions have moved in different directions over the past year. Microsoft cut Game Pass Ultimate from $29.99 to $22.99 a month in April, Sony raised the price of its one- and three-month PlayStation Plus plans in May, and Nintendo has left Switch Online exactly where it was. Microsoft also confirmed in September that cloud streaming on every Game Pass tier will be capped by the hour from November, and this morning’s Game Pass update is a reminder of how much of that service’s value now rests on day-one releases such as Battlefield 6, which joins Ultimate on October 13. As a result, most price comparisons written in 2025 are now out of date.
To put real numbers on it, we took the current U.S. prices from each company’s own pages on October 7, namely Xbox’s plan picker and its April price post, PlayStation’s PS Plus page, and Nintendo’s support and membership comparison pages, and then worked out what each tier costs over a year, over five years, and across a household with more than one console. Every figure below is a list price before tax, and none of it accounts for retail discounts or prepaid cards, which can lower the cost for anyone willing to shop around.
What every tier costs today
| Plan | Monthly | 12 months paid monthly | 12-month plan | Online play in paid games |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nintendo Switch Online | $3.99 | $47.88 | $19.99 | Yes |
| Switch Online + Expansion Pack | Not offered | Not offered | $49.99 | Yes |
| Switch Online Family (up to 8 accounts) | Not offered | Not offered | $34.99 | Yes |
| Switch Online + Expansion Pack Family | Not offered | Not offered | $79.99 | Yes |
| PlayStation Plus Essential | $10.99 | $131.88 | $79.99 | Yes |
| PlayStation Plus Extra | $16.99 | $203.88 | $134.99 | Yes |
| PlayStation Plus Premium | $19.99 | $239.88 | $159.99 | Yes |
| Game Pass Essential | $9.99 | $119.88 | Not listed | Yes |
| Game Pass Premium | $14.99 | $179.88 | Not listed | Yes |
| Game Pass Ultimate | $22.99 | $275.88 | Not listed | Yes |
The first thing the table shows is how much the payment plan matters on PlayStation. Sony’s May increase took the monthly Essential price from $9.99 to $10.99 but left the 12-month plan at $79.99, so paying month to month now costs $51.89 more over a year for exactly the same service. Push Square reported at the time that the new monthly rates apply to new and lapsed members, which means anyone already on a rolling plan keeps the old price until their subscription changes or runs out. Nintendo’s gap is smaller in dollars but larger in proportion, since twelve monthly payments of $3.99 add up to $47.88, more than twice the $19.99 yearly membership.
Xbox is the odd one out. Its plan picker quotes Game Pass only by the month, so the yearly figures for Essential, Premium and Ultimate are simply twelve monthly payments. The cheapest way to play paid games online on an Xbox is Essential at $9.99, a price that has not changed since the plan replaced Game Pass Core in October 2025, and Premium has likewise stayed at $14.99. Only Ultimate has moved, first up to $29.99 last October and then down to $22.99 on April 21, a cut that came with the condition that future Call of Duty games no longer join Game Pass at launch.
Five years of online play at today’s prices
Because online multiplayer is the one feature most players actually need, the cheapest tier on each platform is the fairest point of comparison. Projected across five years, which covers most of a typical console generation, the differences add up to hundreds of dollars.
| Cheapest online tier | Per year | Five years | Difference vs Switch Online |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nintendo Switch Online (12-month) | $19.99 | $99.95 | Baseline |
| PlayStation Plus Essential (12-month) | $79.99 | $399.95 | +$300.00 |
| Game Pass Essential (monthly) | $119.88 | $599.40 | +$499.45 |
At today’s prices, five years of online play on Xbox costs six times as much as it does on Switch 2, and $199.45 more than on PS5 for anyone who pays Sony annually. None of this means the cheapest service is the best value, because Nintendo’s base tier is also the thinnest, but it does mean the subscription is a real part of what a console costs to own. For Xbox in particular it adds more over five years than the $100 to $150 hardware increases Microsoft put through in August, which we covered in our Xbox at 25 price history.
All three platforms leave free-to-play games outside the paywall, so anyone who mainly plays Fortnite, Warzone or similar games online does not need any of these tiers. The subscription only becomes mandatory once someone wants to play a paid game such as Battlefield 6, Mario Kart World or EA Sports FC online.
Who one subscription actually covers
The per-account price only tells part of the story in a household with more than one player or more than one console, because each company shares a membership in a different way. Nintendo is the only one that sells a true family plan, while Sony and Microsoft both tie sharing to a specific console.
| Platform | What one membership covers | What it does not cover |
|---|---|---|
| Nintendo Switch Online | Individual: one Nintendo Account, on whichever console it is used. Family: up to eight Nintendo Accounts in the same family group | Accounts outside the family group |
| PlayStation Plus | The subscriber on any PS5 they sign in to, plus every user on one PS5 with Console Sharing and Offline Play turned on, and on one primary PS4. Online multiplayer and Game Catalog access are among the shared benefits | Friends on other consoles; online storage and PS Plus store discounts are not shared |
| Xbox Game Pass | The subscriber on any Xbox they sign in to, plus every profile on their designated home Xbox even when they are not signed in | Other people on a second console unless the subscriber is signed in there |
In practice, the PlayStation and Xbox rules mean one subscription can cover two consoles at the same time, as long as the subscriber is playing on one of them and the other is set as the sharing or home console. A third console is where the costs diverge. Take a household with three players, each on their own console and each wanting to play paid games online at the same time. On Switch 2, a single family membership at $34.99 a year covers all three accounts, with room for five more. On PS5 or Xbox, the third console needs a second subscription, which comes to $159.98 a year on PlayStation Plus Essential and $239.76 on Game Pass Essential. The PlayStation support page is explicit that a membership cannot be shared with a friend on another console, and Microsoft’s own sharing documentation describes the equivalent home-console rule on Xbox.
Families setting this up should also remember that shared benefits still respect parental controls. Sony notes that child accounts only see age-appropriate catalog games, and the console-level settings we covered in our parental controls comparison apply to shared memberships too.
What the higher tiers add
| Feature | Switch Online / + Expansion Pack | PlayStation Plus | Game Pass |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cloud saves | Save Data Cloud on both tiers, in supported games | Online storage on all tiers | Included on Xbox for all players, not tied to a plan |
| Game library | Nintendo Classics: NES, SNES and Game Boy on base; GBA, N64, Virtual Boy, Sega Genesis and, on Switch 2, GameCube with Expansion Pack | Monthly games on Essential; Game Catalog from Extra; Classics Catalog on Premium | 50+ games on Essential, 200+ on Premium, 500+ on Ultimate, per Xbox’s plan picker |
| New releases | None | No day-one promise | Ultimate gets new games on day one; Premium gets Xbox-published games within a year (Call of Duty excluded) |
| Cloud streaming | Not offered | Premium only, for select PS5 games on PS5 and PlayStation Portal | All tiers, capped from November at 5, 10 and 15 hours a month |
| Extras | GameChat on Switch 2 (base tier); Expansion Pack adds DLC such as the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass and Switch 2 Edition upgrade packs for Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom | Ubisoft+ Classics on Extra and Premium; game trials on Premium | EA Play, Fortnite Crew and Ubisoft+ Classics on Ultimate |
Seen this way, the three services are not really selling the same thing above the entry tier. Nintendo’s Expansion Pack is a retro library plus a handful of DLC packs, and its $49.99 price looks modest next to the other two, especially as a $79.99 family plan that works out to about $10 a person when all eight seats are filled. PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium are built around a rotating back catalog, while Game Pass Ultimate is the only tier on any platform that promises new releases on day one. That makes Ultimate easy to justify for someone who would otherwise buy several new Xbox or PC games a year and hard to justify for someone who mainly plays what they already own. The cloud allowance also deserves a second look before November, since 15 hours a month on Ultimate is far less than the unlimited streaming subscribers have now, a change we explained in our report on the new limits.
Which tier makes sense for which player
For most Switch 2 owners, the base Switch Online membership is the easy choice, and the family plan is the better buy as soon as two people in the house play online. The Expansion Pack is mainly worth it for players who want GameCube and N64 games or the specific DLC it includes, and it is a reasonable upgrade on the family plan, where the extra cost is spread across several accounts.
On PS5, the most important decision is to pay yearly, since the monthly plan now costs a premium on every tier. Essential is enough for online play. Extra makes sense for players who will get through several catalog games a year, and Premium is mainly for those who want cloud streaming on a PlayStation Portal or the Classics Catalog. Anyone still on an old monthly rate should be careful about letting it lapse, because they would rejoin at the new price.
On Xbox, Essential is the floor for online play in paid games and Premium is the value tier for players happy to wait up to a year for Microsoft’s own releases. Ultimate is the right choice for players who want new games on day one, but with Call of Duty no longer included at launch and cloud hours capped from November, it is worth checking whether the games you actually plan to play this fall are on the list. Our October Game Pass guide breaks down which tier gets which release this month. For households with three or more consoles, Nintendo’s family plan is the only membership that scales without paying for a second subscription.
Nintendo’s own overview trailer walks through what each Switch Online tier includes.