AVOD vs SVOD: which is growing faster in 2026

In the AVOD vs SVOD comparison, ad-supported streaming is growing faster than ad-free subscription streaming in the US. At premium SVOD services that offer an ad plan, ad plans drove 78% of net subscriber additions over the nine quarters to Q1 2026, according to Antenna’s Adds & Ads report.

Meanwhile, overall premium SVOD growth slowed to 7% in 2025, down from 12% in 2024, according to Antenna’s Q1 2026 data reported by Quantumrun.

What AVOD and SVOD mean

AVOD is advertising video on demand. Viewers pick shows and movies whenever they like, and ads pay for the content, so the service is free or cheaper than an ad-free plan. SVOD is subscription video on demand. Viewers pay a recurring fee for access to a library.

The two models now overlap. Most large subscription services sell a cheaper ad-supported tier next to an ad-free one.

A subscriber on one of those cheaper tiers pays a subscription, so subscription data counts them as SVOD. For an advertiser, though, that person watches in an ad-supported environment. Each research firm draws this line in a different place, so keep the overlap in mind when you read any AVOD vs SVOD figure. Our AVOD and SVOD streaming ad guide covers the models in more depth.

FAST (free ad-supported streaming TV) means free, scheduled channels with ad breaks, similar to cable. If the formats are new to you, start with OTT advertising explained. For the ad units themselves, see how in-stream video ads work.

How we compared the sources

We make Adwave, which sells advertising across TV, search, social and the web. We have an interest in streaming ads growing, so we have kept each source’s own metric and date rather than blending them into a single number. We used recent dated public figures we could confirm. Each source measures something different:

• Antenna measures US premium paid subscriptions by plan type. Its Q2 2026 Adds & Ads report, published in June 2026, is its latest on ad plans. Its Specialty SVOD data, covered in August 2026, has its latest figures on smaller services.
• MoffettNathanson’s ad spending projection comes from CTAM’s roundup, which cites MediaPost.
• Media Dynamics, listed in the same CTAM roundup, covers upfront ad dollars for streaming and linear TV.
• eMarketer covers US CTV upfront ad spending.

We don’t merge subscriptions, revenue and spend into one growth rate. No public, dated source compares all AVOD, including FAST, with all SVOD on a single metric. Antenna’s split of paid subscriptions by plan type is the closest direct comparison.

Ad-supported vs ad-free subscriptions in 2026

The subscription data shows ad plans taking most of the growth while premium SVOD as a whole slows. Each row below keeps its own period and scope.

The ad plan rows come from Antenna’s Q2 2026 ad plans report page. The full Adds & Ads report PDF supplies the 50.4M and 64.8M net-addition counts and the year-over-year changes. The Specialty SVOD figures come from Antenna data reported by TheDesk in August 2026, and the 2025 premium growth rate from Quantumrun’s summary of Antenna’s Q1 2026 report.

Antenna counts Specialty services separately from Premium ones. These figures cover paid services only and exclude Prime Video and free apps.

Price helps explain the pull toward ads. As of September 2026, Netflix’s ad plan cost $8.99 a month against $19.99 for its Standard ad-free plan, according to Fortune’s September 2026 streaming price roundup. Fortune put eight major services at $139.41 a month without ads, or $89.92 using each service’s standard ad-supported plan where one exists.

Do ad-tier subscribers stay as long?

Ad-tier subscribers stay nearly as long as ad-free ones. In its Q2 2026 report, Antenna says the early worry that ad-supported subscribers would be lower quality “has not materialized,” and that they have “near identical retention rates” to ad-free subscribers.

Antenna’s Adds & Ads report puts numbers on that. After 12 months, 37% of subscribers who joined an ad plan were still subscribed, compared with 39% of those who chose ad-free. Retention is low for both plan types, which means services keep re-acquiring the same viewers, and ad tiers now take most of those sign-ups.

Cord cutters show the same lean toward ads. Among people who cancelled pay TV and didn’t move to a virtual pay TV service, Antenna found that within 90 days 43% had an ad-supported premium SVOD plan, 30% had only an ad-free plan and 27% had no premium SVOD at all. That 27% may still watch ads on free streaming apps, which Antenna’s premium SVOD data doesn’t track.

Ad revenue and spending in streaming

Most of the money figures here are projections, not results, so read each with its date.

MoffettNathanson projected AVOD spending would rise 17% in 2025, to more than $15 billion across 11 streaming platforms, according to CTAM’s ad-supported streaming roundup, which cites MediaPost from October 2025.

On the buying side, eMarketer’s Q2 2026 digital video forecast projected that US CTV upfront ad spending ($17.73 billion) would exceed primetime linear TV upfront spending ($16.98 billion) in 2026 for the first time. CTAM’s roundup also lists Media Dynamics figures of $17.2 billion in streaming upfront dollars against $16.6 billion for linear.

CTV spending covers more than AVOD, including ads on many apps and devices. These dollar figures show money moving toward streaming. They can’t be ranked against Antenna’s subscription growth rates, because they measure a different thing.

Free streaming and FAST

Subscription data leaves out free AVOD entirely, so FAST needs its own measure. Comscore data reported in eMarketer’s FAQ on FAST put US FAST viewing at 1.8 billion hours in August 2025, up 43% year over year. eMarketer names the Roku Channel, Tubi and Pluto TV among the platforms in the category, and notes that advertiser adoption has lagged behind that audience growth.

That is a viewing-hours figure, not a count of households or subscribers, so it can’t sit in the same column as Antenna’s plan counts. It is also a national total, far wider than what a single campaign buys, so it helps to know what reach means for a campaign before you set a budget.

What these numbers can’t tell you

• Subscriptions are not ad inventory. Publishers decide how much ad-tier inventory to sell and through which routes. Some of it is bought automatically, so it helps to know how programmatic ad buying works.
• National counts are not local reach. They don’t show what one budget can reach in your city or ZIP codes.
• Most revenue and spend figures here are projections and can be revised.
• Antenna excludes Prime Video and free AVOD and FAST apps.
• Growth rates from different firms answer different questions. Don’t rank them against each other.
• None of these figures shows whether an ad drives sales. That takes campaign-level tracking, which our guide to measuring whether ads work covers.

What the shift to ad tiers means for advertisers

A growing share of paid streaming viewing now happens in ad-supported plans, on top of the free apps many households already use. That makes streaming TV worth a look for a business that once wrote TV off. A bigger ad-supported audience still doesn’t guarantee that a small buyer can get onto a particular service, or buy at a particular price. Before you buy, ask about what CPM means for your costs. Also ask how many households in your area your budget can reach, and how results will be measured.

Adwave is our own option, not a neutral pick. Adwave creates ads from your website and runs TV alongside search, social and the web from one prepaid daily budget. Daily budgets start at $30, according to the Adwave pricing page as of October 2026. Some channels have higher thresholds. TikTok, for example, is in early access from $91 a day. What runs depends on your budget, audience size, creative and campaign settings, as the Adwave FAQ on channel eligibility explains. Adwave doesn’t guarantee sales or a return on spend. Results depend on your offer, audience, budget, creative and website.