How we calculate your streaming savings

SubSwitch uses one savings formula across the entire product (the cable-cutter calculator, your plan screen, and the paywall), so the number you see anywhere is computed the same way as everywhere else.

The formula

The two inputs are captured from what's actually true for your account, never typed in as a hypothetical:

• Baseline: what you actually pay today. Your cable bill, where one exists, from the cable-cutter calculator, plus any streaming services you've told SubSwitch you currently subscribe to. Never a hypothetical, an average, or a modeled figure.
• Plan Cost: what your SubSwitch plan costs. A fixed live TV service, if you kept one, plus the 12-month average of your on-demand rotation. A service that's already bundled into your live TV plan (like Hulu inside Hulu + Live TV) is never counted twice.

A savings figure is never computed against:

• The sum of every service that happens to match your watchlist
• The single cheapest service you subscribe to
• Any population average or blended figure

No captured baseline, no savings figure. If SubSwitch doesn't know your cable bill or your confirmed streaming subscriptions, it shows your plan cost and coverage, not a savings number, because there would be nothing real to compare it against.

Attribution, not addition. When a savings figure is broken into parts (replacing cable with live TV, dropping other streaming subscriptions, rotating on-demand instead of subscribing year-round), those parts always sum exactly to the one headline figure. Two figures computed against different baselines are never added together.

Worked example

These are real outputs from the SubSwitch engine, run for two representative accounts: a cable-cutter and a pure streamer. Nothing below is interactive; your own baseline and plan cost will differ.

Cable-cutter example

Xfinity at $150/mo, plus Netflix and Disney+ confirmed as current streaming ($25.48/mo): a $175.48/mo baseline. The recommended plan keeps YouTube TV fixed ($82.99/mo) and rotates a 6-title watchlist across Peacock and Prime Video for a 12-month on-demand average of $21.23/mo.

• Replacing cable with live TV: $67.01/mo
• Dropping other streaming subscriptions: $25.48/mo
• Rotating on-demand instead of subscribing year-round: −$21.23/mo

Pure streamer example

Netflix, Max, Disney+, and Hulu confirmed as current streaming: a $52.46/mo baseline. No live TV. The recommended plan rotates a 6-title watchlist across Hulu and Prime Video for a 12-month average of $17.44/mo.

• Rotating instead of paying for everything you use: $35.02/mo

Where you'll see this number

The same formula, computed from the same baseline, feeds every savings number SubSwitch shows you, and it's the same figure in all three places for a given user:

• The cable-cutter calculator result
• Your plan screen in the app
• The paywall

Limitations

To keep the formula credible, note what it does not include:

• The SubSwitch subscription cost ($4.99/month) is not subtracted from the savings. These are streaming-service savings only.
• The formula assumes you actually rotate per the plan. If you re-subscribe to a paused service mid-month because new episodes dropped unexpectedly, the realized savings will be lower than the projection.
• Pricing is based on standard monthly rates. Annual prepay deals, bundle discounts (like the Disney+/Hulu/Max bundle), or promotional pricing can shift the actual number up or down. Price verification dates are being added for each service and are not yet set.
• Cable-to-streaming savings (e.g. for the cable-cutter flow) use the same formula: the baseline is your cable bill, plus any confirmed streaming, not a modeled streaming bill.
• Live TV services are treated as a fixed, year-round cost, never rotated, paused, or swapped the way on-demand services are.

How SubSwitch makes money

SubSwitch earns money two ways: the $4.99/month subscription, and, for some services, an affiliate commission when you sign up through one of our Subscribe links. A commission costs you nothing extra. Your plan is computed without looking at which services pay us: the rotation, the budget recommendation and every savings figure come from your watchlist, your baseline and each service's price, never from affiliate status.

This formula is computed from your captured baseline, not a number you type in. Your realized result depends on your baseline, watchlist, budget, provider pricing, catalog availability, and whether you follow the rotation schedule.