Two links here are affiliate links that can earn us money: Amazon Prime, and the Microsoft 365 Family card Amazon sells. Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Netflix, Disney+, Google and Microsoft’s own site are linked direct and pay us nothing — those links are also where today’s prices came from. See our methodology.
Across the services below, a family plan is the largest standing discount on offer — a cut of 50% to 85% per person that most households never take, because it needs one person to buy and everyone else to be invited.
But “family” means something different at every company. Two of the big plans require everyone to live at the same address. One requires you to hand another adult your payment method. And one of them, at exactly two people, costs more than two individual subscriptions.
What a shared plan actually costs per person
Per-person figures assume the plan is full — a six-seat plan used by two is a much worse deal than the last column suggests.
| Service | Solo | Shared plan | Seats | Per person / year, full |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google One (100 GB) | $1.99/mo | $1.99/mo | 6 | $3.98 |
| Microsoft 365 | $99.99/yr | $129.99/yr | 6 | $21.67 |
| Apple Music | $11.99/mo | $19.99/mo | 6 | $39.98 |
| Spotify | $12.99/mo | $21.99/mo | 6 | $43.98 |
| YouTube Premium | $15.99/mo | $26.99/mo | 6 | $53.98 |
| Apple One | $21.95/mo | $27.95/mo | 6 | $55.90 |
| Amazon Prime | about $140/yr | same | 2 | about $70 |
| Netflix Standard | $19.99/mo | +$9.99/mo per extra member | 1 + 2 | $179.88 (two people) |
| Disney+ (With Ads) | $12.49/mo | no family plan | household | $149.88 |
All prices read from each company’s own pages on 30 September 2026, except Amazon Prime — see below for why that one is rounded.
Google One is the one people forget. The 100 GB Basic tier is $1.99 a month and shares storage with up to five other people — $23.88 a year for a household of six, under four dollars each. The 2 TB tier is $9.99 and the 5 TB tier $19.99, both sharing with five others.
Microsoft 365 is the biggest saving in absolute terms. Family is $129.99 a year for one to six people with 1 TB of storage each; Personal is $99.99 a year for one. The upgrade costs $30 a year and covers five more people. Two people on Personal are paying $69.99 a year more than they need to. One caveat: Microsoft’s comparison says the AI features are for the subscription owner only, so the invited seats get the apps and storage, not Copilot. Amazon also sells a 12-month Microsoft 365 Family card, shipped and sold by Amazon itself — confirmed today. Compare its price against Microsoft’s $129.99 yourself, and check whether it auto-renews; the card and the subscription are different products.
The break-even is two people — except on YouTube
For every music plan here, the second person pays for the upgrade outright:
- Spotify: two Individual accounts cost $311.76 a year. Premium Duo is $18.99 a month, or $227.88 — an $83.88 saving. Premium Family at $21.99 costs $263.88 and covers six.
- Apple Music: two Individual accounts cost $287.76 a year. Family at $19.99 a month is $239.88 — a $47.88 saving, and four spare seats.
Spotify’s Duo tier is only $3 a month cheaper than Family — $36 a year. Take Duo if there are exactly two of you and that won’t change; take Family if there’s any chance of a third.
YouTube Premium breaks the pattern. Individual is $15.99 a month, but YouTube also sells 12 months for $159.99 — $13.33 a month. Family is $26.99 a month, with no annual Family price on the page.
So for two people:
- Two annual Individual plans: $319.98 a year
- One Family plan: $323.88 a year
Family is $3.90 a year more expensive at two people, and only starts winning at three, where three annual Individuals would run $479.97 against $323.88 — a $156.09 saving. The cause is the annual discount YouTube gives individuals and not families.
Choosing between the services rather than the plan sizes? Full comparison here — though the plan decision is worth more.
Same address, or not: the rule that actually bites
Spotify requires it explicitly. Premium Duo is “for couples who reside at the same address” and Premium Family is “for up to 6 family members residing at the same address”, both on its own plans page.
YouTube says so too: family members “must live in the same household as the family manager”, must be 13 or over, and each needs a Google account.
Apple does not say it on the plan page. Apple Music Family says only “share with up to five people via Family Sharing”, and Apple One Family and Premier say the same — no address condition on either page. That makes Apple the most permissive of the three on its own marketing, though Family Sharing has its own account requirements.
Microsoft and Google state no address rule on the pages we read — Microsoft says “for 1 to 6 people”, Google “share storage with up to 5 others”.
If the people you want to share with live somewhere else, this is the whole decision. A plan you get removed from in month four is not a saving.
Amazon’s version costs you a payment method
Amazon Prime runs about $140 a year — approximate, because Amazon blocks automated price reads and we hold no API access. What we can read at source is how sharing works, and Amazon changed it on 18 September.
Amazon Family shares Prime benefits with one other adult, up to four teens and up to four children at your primary residential address. Halving the cost to roughly $70 each is the best per-person rate of any membership here, but three conditions apply:
- You must share a payment method. Amazon’s help page calls this a trust signal for verifying the household. As of 18 September 2026 it is one-way — the organiser shares their card with the invited adult, who doesn’t reciprocate. Families created before that date keep two-way sharing until a member changes.
- Prime Video ad-free cannot be shared. It requires an individual subscription.
- Student and Young Adult Prime members cannot share at all.
Sharing a card with another adult is a real cost that never appears on the bill. If that person is your partner, fine. If they’re your adult sibling, think about it. Whether Prime is worth $140 before you halve it is a separate question.
Netflix and Disney+ sell seats, not family plans
Neither has a family tier. Both bind the subscription to a household and sell outside access as an add-on.
Netflix publishes the clearest version, on its own plans-and-pricing page. Standard is $19.99 a month and allows one extra member who doesn’t live with you; Premium is $26.99 and allows two. Each extra member costs $7.99 a month with ads or $9.99 without. Standard plus one ad-free extra member is $359.76 a year for two — $179.88 each, four times the per-person cost of a music family plan. Standard with ads is $8.99; whether the ad tier is the better buy is its own calculation.
Disney+ is $12.49 a month with ads, or $21.49 a month / $214.99 a year for Premium — up from $11.99 and $18.99 when we first checked on 20 September. It sells an extra-member add-on, but its price on a Disney+-only plan isn’t published on disneyplus.com or Disney’s help centre, so we won’t guess. Hulu’s own price list does give one figure: $7.99 a month for an extra member on the Disney+, Hulu bundle. Check the rest at checkout.
An extra member is a seat at near full price, not a share. Adding one person to Netflix costs $119.88 a year — half the total price of a six-person Apple Music plan, for one extra viewer.
The verdict
Buy the shared plan the moment a second person exists for Microsoft 365, Google One, Apple Music, Spotify and Amazon Prime. All five break even at two people, and four leave spare seats you can fill later for nothing. Microsoft 365 Family is the standout: $30 a year to go from one person to six.
Do the annual arithmetic first on YouTube Premium. At exactly two people, two annual Individual plans at $159.99 beat Family by $3.90 a year. Upgrade at three.
Don’t buy a family plan if the people you’re sharing with live elsewhere. Spotify and YouTube state the same-address requirement on their own pages, and Amazon requires a shared address plus a shared payment method. A six-seat plan bought for a group spread across three cities is something you aren’t entitled to use, and the seats can be revoked.
Don’t buy a bigger plan speculatively. Apple One Premier at $39.95 used by one person is $479.40 a year for services they mostly don’t open. The per-person column is only true at full occupancy; a half-empty family plan is an expensive individual one.
And if it’s only storage you’re sharing, start there. Google One at $1.99 covers six people for $23.88 a year — compare that against what your household pays across three separate cloud plans today (full storage comparison).
Verified 30 September 2026; first published 20 September 2026. The Spotify, Apple Music, Apple One, YouTube Premium, Netflix, Disney+, Microsoft 365 and Google One prices are exact, re-read from each company’s own pages on 30 September; only Disney+ had changed. The Amazon Prime price is approximate — Amazon blocks automated price reads and we have no API access — and the Amazon Family sharing rules come from Amazon’s own help page as read on 20 September. Disney+’s extra-member price on a standalone plan is not published and is not stated here.