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Peacock has three paid tiers: Select, Premium, and Premium+. Want to test drive Peacock before signing up? You can't, which is a bummer. Peacock lacks a free tier and a free trial, much like Disney+ and Netflix. For an excellent free video service, check out Tubi, our top pick for no-cost streaming.
Peacock's $8.99-per-month Select option replaces the free tier. It has a smaller, ad-supported library of current TV shows. That said, it lacks originals, films, and sports. The reduced library is disappointing, but many streaming services have moved in the same direction. For example, Netflix's $8.99-per-month, ad-supported plan also has a limited library.
The $12.99-per-month Premium tier has the full library of on-demand, ad-supported movies, shows, and live sports. Meanwhile, the $19.99-per-month Premium Plus tier removes most commercials and adds offline downloads.
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In addition to watching Peacock via a browser, you can also download dedicated apps on mobile platforms (Android and iOS), media streaming devices (Apple TV, Chromecast, and Roku), gaming consoles (Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S; PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5), and the entire Fire TV lineup.
Peacock claims it has more than 80,000 hours of programming. Starting with on-demand content, Peacock is home to 30 Rock, Cheers, Frasier, Friday Night Lights, Heroes, The King of Queens, The Office, Parks and Recreation, and Saturday Night Live, as well as other currently running NBC shows like Chicago Fire and Law & Order: SVU. Subscribers can watch those episodes on the same day that the programs air. Peacock is also home to the Bravo universe of reality TV programming, making it a must-watch for Real Housewives fans.
Peacock has some original shows, too, and their quality has steadily grown. They include the gritty Bel-Air reboot, the reality dating show Love Island, the bizarre true-crime doc Paul T. Goldman, Rian Johnson's Poker Face, prestige novel adaptations like All Her Fault and The Five-Star Weekend, and a TV continuation of Seth MacFarlane's Ted.
It has longer-form originals, too. Anthony, a fictionalized account of what Anthony Walker's future might have been had he not been murdered in an unprovoked racist attack; In Deep with Ryan Lochte, which explores the Olympian's scandals and career; a sequel to the original Psych movie called Psych 2: Lassie Come Home; and Speedways, a documentary on racing tracks narrated by Dale Earnhardt Jr. Plus, there are family friendly cartoons, including Cleopatra in Space, Curious George, and Where's Waldo?.
NBCUniversal's parent company, Comcast, owns several movie studios, including DreamWorks Animation, Focus Features, Illumination, and Universal Pictures. So, you'll find The Super Mario Galaxy Movie on Peacock. Other movie streaming services, including Criterion Channel and Mubi, offer a far broader lineup of classic, indie, and international films.
Peacock's biggest opportunity for differentiation is its content from the broadcast NBC channels. For instance, you get episodes from top NBC shows such as Dateline, Meet the Press, NBC Nightly News, and Today. You can also watch comedy, news, sports, and entertainment clips and highlights from across NBCUniversal's channels, which are very similar to the clips-based channels on Pluto TV and Xumo. A few channels, including NBC News Now and Sky News, run throughout the day so that you can stay caught up on the headlines. Other channels are dedicated to specific NBC shows, such as Saturday Night Live or Late Night with Seth Meyers.
Live sports are a big draw for Peacock. For instance, you can watch every Sunday Night Football game this season. That coverage earns it a spot in our roundup of the best NFL streaming services. Additionally, Peacock has the rights to live Premier League matches and World Wrestling Entertainment's Saturday Night Main Event. Note that Peacock's live sports coverage is restricted to Premium and Premium Plus subscribers.
Paramount+ also bundles live local news and sports coverage into its streaming service (including local-market NFL games that air on CBS on Sunday afternoons). Other primarily on-demand services have increasingly embraced live sports, too. Prime Video, for example, is the exclusive broadcaster of Thursday Night Football (it also streams select NBA and WNBA games). Although these options are not necessarily the best sports streaming services, this extra content adds substantial value.
I tested Peacock in Firefox on a Windows 11 desktop. Peacock's web interface has a clean design with a black, yellow, gray, and white color scheme. The layout is simple to navigate, and I didn't experience any performance issues in testing.
Peacock's interface is split into two main sections—Channels and Browse—with a top menu bar for navigation. The upper-right section has a search bar and an icon for your account profile. The search tool can only find items by title, so you can't search by cast members, directors, or producers, for example. The Account settings page lets you update your profile and payment details, set up parental controls, customize subtitles, and opt out of email notifications.
The Channels section is where you can find live sports, news streams, and clip-based channels from various Comcast properties. Browse is where all of the service's on-demand content lives. The Channels interface is just a guide with columns for what's currently playing and what's set to play next. There's no way to prioritize your favorite channels.
The other items in the top menu are Featured, TV Shows, Movies, Kids, Sports, and Latino. All of the sections are organized similarly, with highlighted content in a top slider and various curated horizontal scrolling lists running down the rest of the page. A purple feather icon in the upper-left corner of a show's or movie's thumbnail indicates it is for Premium subscribers only.
To start watching a show or movie, click on a thumbnail and press the Watch Now button. Unlike most of its competitors, Peacock doesn't let you quickly add items to a watchlist or begin playback by just hovering over the title; both buttons are only accessible on the show's or movie's detail page. The Watchlist is also only available from the Featured section in the interface. I would prefer a dedicated icon next to the profile and search tools.
On a movie's detail page, you can see the film's IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes rating, genre, running time, release year, parental rating, principal cast members, and a brief description. Annoyingly, the trailer auto-plays as soon as you arrive on the page, and I couldn't find a way to pause or otherwise disable the preview (modern trailers reveal way too much of a movie's plot). At the bottom of the page, Peacock includes a section for films you may also like, along with any related clips, which, for most movies, is just the trailer. The experience is essentially the same for TV shows, except for the Episodes selector menu. Unfortunately, you can't click on the show's genre or cast members to see other shows that fit that mold or include those actors and actresses, which would improve Peacock's discoverability.
There's no place to add a review and rating on a show or movie's detail page. Mubi, Prime Video, Shudder, and Sundance Now let you add your thoughts. Other services, including Apple TV, Crackle, and Mubi, do a better job of listing more detailed information about their content.
I installed Peacock on an Android phone and had no issues signing in to a test account. The app resembles the now-defunct Quibi a bit, with a primarily vertical layout. I noticed a slight lag when moving between app screens and launching streams.
Navigation is accomplished via a bottom menu with Channels, Trending, and Browse sections. You can access your profile settings via the top-right icon (only on the Trending page), while the search bar is in the bottom-left corner of the screen. In the profile section, you can view but not edit your plan information and restrict playback to Wi-Fi connections. There are no options for adjusting how subtitles appear.
Both the Channels and Browse sections operate identically to their web counterparts. The Trending section is just a list of clips and trailers. Oddly, the Watchlist is only available via an overflow menu in the Now Playing screen. It should be more prominent in the mobile interface.
Peacock now supports offline downloads on mobile devices, but only for Premium Plus subscribers. I would prefer that subscribers to the paid Premium tier also get this capability. Prime Video and Netflix both support this feature without requiring you to pay for a more expensive plan.
Peacock's programming mainly streams at 720p or 1080p resolution, though select shows and movies top out at 4K. The platform supports Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision HDR for live sports. In fact, its NBA streams looked great on my 4K TV.
The web playback screen has all the features you'd expect from a top streamer service. In addition to the standard playback and volume tools, there are 10-second rewind and fast-forward buttons, a subtitles toggle, a More Episodes selector (for TV shows), and an info button for viewing a brief description of the programming. The mobile app's playback screen retains the same controls and the aforementioned overflow menu, which gives you quick access to the More Episodes, Continue Watching, and Watchlist sections.
NBC specifies a maximum of three simultaneous streams per account. BritBox is currently the most generous in terms of simultaneous streams, supporting up to five. Other services, such as Disney+ and HBO Max, allow three simultaneous streams.
Peacock's ad experience isn't unreasonable (the service says ads typically play before and during a show), though I wish there weren't any in the paid tiers. When I tried streaming with all my typical privacy extensions enabled, I saw a pop-up asking me to disable my ad blocker. However, once I dismissed that message, the stream started without issue. Some shows had more ads than others. For instance, I had to watch 2 minutes and 45 seconds of ads for a 21-minute episode of Parks and Recreation, but less than a minute of ads for a 30 Rock episode. Discovery+ has a similar ad experience in its entry-level tier.
The clip-based channels didn't seem to show traditional ads. When the Office Shorts channel ended its programming block, I only saw Peacock's "We'll Be Right Back" banner.
HBO Max, Hulu, and Paramount+'s cheapest paid tiers have ads, too. The ad experience on free services, such as Editors' Choice pick Tubi, is far worse, assuming you don't find a way to block those ads from playing with various tracking and ad-blocking extensions.
Note that no other video streaming service I've reviewed matches the utility of Prime Video's IMDb-powered X-Ray sidebar, which lists cast members in the current scene, any music tracks, and tidbits such as continuity goofs and random trivia.
You can't customize Peacock's subtitles directly from the video player. To change the appearance of these captions, head to the settings in the desktop section. There, you can adjust the text size; change the color of the font, shadow, background, and window; and select a new text style. Those options are standard. However, Apple TV, Prime Video, and Netflix all offer far broader support for the audio descriptions accessibility feature, which audibly narrates scene changes and character actions that are not easily discernible from dialog alone.
Peacock parental control tools have improved. In the Account Settings section, you can create a four-digit PIN that Peacock requires whenever you (or your kid) watch content rated at or above the selected parental rating. Peacock lets you create up to six profiles per account, which is impressive. Although you can't specify custom restrictions per profile, you can designate a profile as a Kids account (only shows content with TVY, TVY7, TVY7-FV, TVG, G, TVPG, and PG ratings).
This setup is fine for families with younger kids, but it's not ideal for parents of older kids. For instance, if a parent wants to let their kid watch movies rated up to PG-13, they have to apply that restriction to all regular profile users. As a result, parents would need to enter the PIN each time to watch anything rated higher.
Disney+, HBO Max, and Netflix are among the best video streaming services for parents looking to limit what their children can watch. These services support multiple viewing profiles and allow you to set content restrictions for each.
A VPN is an essential tool for protecting your privacy online from third-party threats. VPNs are also useful when you want to spoof your location online. This poses a problem for video streaming services, as some content may be intended only for specific regions. As such, many video streaming services simply block VPN traffic entirely.
I tried streaming some of Peacock's on-demand content over a US-based Mullvad VPN server. On most occasions, Peacock pushed a message explaining that accessing the service via a VPN is restricted. However, I was able to stream over a VPN connection on other attempts, so your results may vary. In any case, you can always disable your VPN when streaming and then turn it on afterward.
Final Thoughts
(Credit: Peacock)
Peacock
- 5.0 - Exemplary: Near perfection, ground-breaking
- 4.5 - Outstanding: Best in class, acts as a benchmark for measuring competitors
- 4.0 - Excellent: A performance, feature, or value leader in its class, with few shortfalls
- 3.5 - Good: Does what the product should do, and does so better than many competitors
- 3.0 - Average: Does what the product should do, and sits in the middle of the pack
- 2.5 - Fair: We have some reservations, buy with caution
- 2.0 - Subpar: We do not recommend, buy with extreme caution
- 1.5 - Poor: Do not buy this product
- 1.0 - Dismal: Don't even think about buying this product
Read Our Editorial Mission Statement and Testing Methodologies.
It's a bummer that Peacock subscribers now either have to pay more for the same experience or pay the same and accept a more limited library. Despite the unsurprising price increases, NBC's video streaming service combines a large and growing selection of fan-favorite shows and movies with live news and sports. Its substantive library and support for HD content help it maintain our Editors' Choice award for low-cost streaming services.
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About Our Expert
My PCMag career began in 2013 as an intern. Now, I'm a senior writer, using the skills I acquired at Northwestern University to write about dating apps, meal kits, programming software, website builders, video streaming services, and video games. I was previously a senior editor at Geek.com and have written for The A.V. Club, Kotaku, and Paste Magazine. I'm the author of the gaming history book Video Game of the Year: A Year-by-Year Guide to the Best, Boldest, and Most Bizarre Games from Every Year Since 1977, and the reason everything you know about Street Sharks is a lie.
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