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Two services sell anime as their whole product. Crunchyroll starts at $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year. HIDIVE costs $7.99 a month or $79.99 a year. Both prices were read from the companies’ own sign-up pages on 6 October 2026. Netflix is the third option, because plenty of people already pay for it.
So the price gap is small: $20 a year at the cheapest tiers. What actually decides it is whether the show you want is on that service this season, and then how many people will be watching. No service has every series, so the right answer is often a rotation rather than one subscription.
The prices side by side
| Service | Monthly | 12 months at monthly | Yearly plan | Streams at once |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HIDIVE | $7.99 | $95.88 | $79.99 | 2 |
| Crunchyroll Fan | $9.99 | $119.88 | $99.99 | 1 |
| Crunchyroll Mega Fan | $13.99 | $167.88 | $139.99 | 4 |
| Crunchyroll Ultimate Fan | $17.99 | $215.88 | $179.99 | 6 |
| Netflix Standard with ads | $8.99 | $107.88 | none | 2 |
| Netflix Standard | $19.99 | $239.88 | none | 2 |
Every Crunchyroll tier has the same library, the same ad-free playback and the same simulcasts, which are new episodes “shortly after airing in Japan”, in the plan picker’s words. The tiers differ only in stream count and store perks. We covered that in detail in Is Crunchyroll worth it?, and the short version still holds: nothing above Fan buys an extra episode.
HIDIVE sells one plan, billed monthly or yearly. Its page lists simulcasts, exclusives, dubs, the full library, offline downloads and two streams at once on both billing options.
Netflix sells no annual plan, so its yearly figure is just twelve monthly payments.
The cheapest specialist isn’t the cheapest for everyone
On price alone, HIDIVE wins: $79.99 a year is $6.67 a month, against $8.33 for Crunchyroll Fan on its yearly plan. But the extra stream changes the comparison as soon as a second person is watching.
One viewer: HIDIVE $79.99 vs Crunchyroll Fan $99.99. HIDIVE is $20 a year cheaper.
Two viewers watching at the same time: Crunchyroll Fan allows one stream, so two people need Mega Fan at $139.99, which is $70.00 each. HIDIVE’s two streams cost $40.00 each.
Four viewers: HIDIVE can’t cover you on one account. Mega Fan is $35.00 each, the lowest per-person price in the table.
The stream count is easy to overlook and it’s the most expensive detail here. Crunchyroll’s cheapest plan won’t let a partner watch on another TV while you’re on your phone. HIDIVE’s will.
None of this matters if the show you want isn’t on the service. Check the title before you pay, not after. Both services offer a 7-day free trial, which is the time to do it.
Both specialists cost the same as Crunchyroll’s top tier
Plenty of anime fans end up paying for both, because the season’s shows are split between them. The yearly arithmetic:
Crunchyroll Fan $99.99 + HIDIVE $79.99 = $179.98 a year.
That’s one cent less than Crunchyroll Ultimate Fan on its own ($179.99). One gets you both specialist libraries. The other gets you one library, manga access, free shipping on all store orders and a swag bag after twelve months. If you’re choosing where to put $180, Ultimate Fan is very hard to justify unless you buy a lot from the Crunchyroll Store.
Rotate by season instead of paying for both all year
Anime mostly airs in cours, seasons of about three months that start in winter, spring, summer and autumn. That suits monthly billing better than annual. The annual vs monthly billing rule applies here: an annual discount only counts if you’d have used all twelve months.
Say there are two seasons a year where your shows are on Crunchyroll, and one where the one you care about is on HIDIVE:
Crunchyroll Fan monthly for six months: 6 × $9.99 = $59.94
HIDIVE monthly for three months: 3 × $7.99 = $23.97
Total: $83.91 a year
That’s $96.07 less than the $179.98 for both yearly plans. It also beats Crunchyroll Fan’s yearly plan on its own, and it’s only $3.92 more than HIDIVE’s yearly plan, while giving you access to both libraries when it matters. The cost is three months a year with no paid anime service at all, and two cancellations to remember.
One thing to know before trying it on HIDIVE: its help centre says that if you cancel during the free trial, you lose access immediately, not at the end of the seven days. Watch what you came for, then cancel.
Where Netflix fits
Netflix carries anime as part of a general library. It isn’t sold as an anime service, though, and its plan page makes no promise about episodes arriving shortly after Japanese broadcast the way Crunchyroll’s and HIDIVE’s do.
As a dedicated anime purchase, Netflix’s ad tier at $107.88 a year costs more than either specialist’s yearly plan, and that’s before the jump to $239.88 for Standard without ads. The case for Netflix is simple and narrow: if you already pay for it, watch what it has first and see whether that covers you. Whether the ad tier is tolerable is its own question, covered in Netflix’s ad tier vs ad-free.
Buying through Amazon instead
Both specialists are available as Prime Video Channels: Crunchyroll and HIDIVE. We confirmed both channel pages were live on 6 October 2026. The advantage is one bill and one cancel button for everything, which matters a lot if you plan to rotate by season. That trade-off is set out in Prime Video Channels vs subscribing direct.
Three caveats:
- We have not read either channel’s price on Amazon. We don’t publish Amazon prices we can’t verify, so compare against the figures above at checkout.
- Channels need Prime, which costs about $140 a year. That’s approximate, because Amazon’s own pricing can’t be confirmed at source. If you don’t already have Prime, the channel route isn’t the cheap one.
- Crunchyroll on Amazon is Fan or Mega Fan only. That’s according to Crunchyroll’s help centre when we read it in August 2026; we didn’t re-check it this time. The same page said a subscription bought on Crunchyroll’s own site can’t later be moved to Amazon, so choose your billing route first.
Two things the pricing pages don’t settle
Crunchyroll Fan and offline viewing. The plan picker ticks “Offline Viewing” on all three tiers, including Fan. Further down the same page, Crunchyroll says offline viewing is for “Mega and Ultimate Fans.” That contradiction was there in August and is still there now. If downloads are the reason you’re buying, check them during the trial before relying on Fan. HIDIVE’s page lists offline downloads on its only plan.
What’s free. Neither specialist lists a free on-demand tier on its plan page. We couldn’t confirm one, so we’re not recommending one.
The verdict
Don’t pay for a dedicated anime service if you watch a few shows a year. If you already have Netflix, start there. If you don’t, a single month of Crunchyroll or HIDIVE when a show you want is airing costs $9.99 or $7.99. Twelve months for a handful of evenings is the kind of subscription this site exists to talk you out of.
Don’t buy Crunchyroll Ultimate Fan to watch anime. For one cent less, $179.98 a year buys both Crunchyroll Fan and HIDIVE.
Don’t buy Crunchyroll Mega Fan if you live alone. Fan has the same library for $40 a year less.
HIDIVE yearly ($79.99) is the cheapest specialist plan and the best value for one or two people, if its catalogue has what you watch.
Crunchyroll Fan yearly ($99.99) suits the solo viewer who watches year-round and whose shows are mostly on Crunchyroll.
Crunchyroll Mega Fan ($139.99) is the best value for a household of three or four: $35 each.
Rotating monthly by season is cheapest for most people: around $84 a year for access to both libraries when it matters.
Verified 6 October 2026. Crunchyroll’s six tier prices, stream limits, per-tier benefits and 7-day trial are exact, read from Crunchyroll’s own plan picker that day. HIDIVE’s $7.99 and $79.99 plans and two-stream limit are exact, from HIDIVE’s own sign-up page; its 7-day trial and cancellation rule are from HIDIVE’s help centre, the same day. Netflix prices are exact, from Netflix’s Plans and Pricing help page the same day. Both Prime Video Channels pages were confirmed live; their prices were not read. The Prime figure is an approximation, because Amazon’s pricing can’t be verified at source. The Amazon tier restriction for Crunchyroll comes from its help centre as read in August 2026 and was not re-checked. Promotional rates change, so confirm at signup.