Paramount Plus Review: Cost, Plans, Shows, and More (2024)

Paramount+ is a rebrand of CBS All Access, which was a scattershot of originals, older shows, random movies, and stacks upon stacks of Star Trek. In our review of CBS All Access, we suggested that CBS All Access could just as easily be titled Star Trek+, but Paramount+ spreads the entertainment love more evenly and widely.

In all, Paramount+ features around 30,000 shows from CBS, Comedy Central, Paramount Network, BET, MTV, VH1, and other channels, and hundreds of movies from the Paramount Pictures library. It’s a lot like CBS All Access, plus more.

CBS All Access fans won’t find anything to complain about with Paramount+, and newcomers will probably be less confused—it’s not just about CBS TV shows. We thought CBS All Access was OK; Paramount+ comes much closer to good (but not quite perfect) with more content from all of ViacomCBS’s networks, plus a bundle with SHOWTIME.

• Cheap plans and bundles
• Deep library of TV shows and movies
• Local CBS livestream ($11.99 version)

• Unskippable Paramount+ ads
• Small lineup of originals

Jump to:

• Plans and pricing
• Paramount Plus vs. the competition
• Shows on Paramount Plus
• Specs and features

Paramount+ recently increased its ad-supported tier by a dollar, from $4.99 a month to $5.99 a month. The new, cheaper Essential plan also dropped local CBS station live TV streaming, as well as offline downloads for mobile viewing.

Also, be aware that “no ads” on the Paramount+ With SHOWTIME plan only applies to on-demand content—you’re still going to see ads on live TV, because it’s live.

With over 30,000 hours TV shows and movies, Paramount+ can hold its own against corporate vault streamers like Peaco*ck and Max (formerly HBO Max). Like those two, Paramount+ features content-specific hubs: CBS, Comedy Central, BET, MTV, Nickelodeon, and Smithsonian Channel. You can also find shows, movies, and live TV through the top menu. We have a few recs in our What to Watch on Paramount+ guide, btw.

You’re able to watch the latest episodes of CBS shows the day after they’ve aired on CBS live TV, including comedies, dramas, late-night talk shows (like The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and The Late Late Show with James Corden), and news (like 60 Minutes, Face the Nation, and 48 Hours).

There’s also a deep trove of shows and stand-up specials from Comedy Central, as well as all 10 seasons of VH1 staple RuPaul’s Drag Race, and every Star Trek series and movie from the ‘60s forward. Previously aired CBS specials like The Grammy Awards can also be found on Paramount+.

The biggest MIA show: popular Paramount Network drama Yellowstone, which streams seasons 1–4 exclusively on Peaco*ck. If you’re looking for Kevin Costner’s Sons of Anarchy on a Ranch, it’s not on Paramount+. A close runner-up: former CBS series The Big Bang Theory (it’s on Max).

The Paramount+ live TV streaming channels (Premium plan only) are composed of CBS (your local station), CBSN (24/7 news), CBS Sports HQ (around-the-clock sports analysis and live games), and ET Live (Entertainment Tonight on a perpetual loop).

• Young Sheldon
• Evil
• The Neighborhood
• FBI
• Mom
• Love Island
• Chappelle’s Show
• Comedy Central standup specials
• Daria
• Bar Rescue
• Wings

• Tosh.0
• Key & Peele
• RuPaul’s Drag Race
• All Rise
• CSI
• Survivor
• The Good Wife
• Beverly Hills, 90210
• Big Brother
• Star Trek series

• Peppa Pig
• SpongeBob SquarePants
• The Fairly Oddparents
• Blue’s Clues
• Bob the Builder
• The Backyardigans
• Bubble Guppies
• CatDog
• Are You Afraid of the Dark?
• Clarissa Explains it All

• Dora the Explorer
• Doug
• Crashletes
• iCarly
• Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness
• Inspector Gadget
• Strawberry Shortcake
• Super Mario World
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
• The Thundermans

• Indiana Jones movies
• Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle
• Sin City
• From Dusk till Dawn
• Grease
• The Uninvited
• Vanilla Sky
• Failure to Launch
• Minority Report
• Black Sheep

• Election
• Kingpin
• Nacho Libre
• Scrooged
• Sahara
• Snow Day
• Up in Smoke
• Aeon Flux
• Star Trek movies

The Paramount+ roster of exclusive originals is small but growing, and includes critical hits like The Good Fight, Why Women Kill, and the latest adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand. There’s also a trifecta of excellent Star Trek series, and a new crime thriller, Mayor of Kingstown.

On the other side of the reviews, Jordan Peele’s Twilight Zone revival has received mixed reactions, and so-so series Strange Angel and Tell Me a Story were both canceled after two seasons. Apart from a small but growing number of gems, the value of Paramount+ isn’t yet in the originals.

• Mayor of Kingstown
• 1883
• Guilty Party
• Star Trek: Lower Decks
• Star Trek: Prodigy
• The Game

• The Good Fight
• Evil
• Mike Judge’s Beavis & Butt-Head
• iCarly
• Star Trek: Discovery
• Star Trek: Picard

Live sports on Paramount+ is limited to what’s carried by CBS TV and cable’s CBS Sports Network (Paramount+ With SHOWTIME plan only). NFL games (including the Super Bowl on select years), NCAA March Madness games (excluding those aired on TBS, TNT, and truTV), Masters golf, and college hockey (yes, it’s a thing) can be found on Paramount+.

Paramount+ also features a healthy lineup of UEFA and NWSL soccer coverage. It probably won’t cater to all of your sports needs, but Paramount+ has a bit more than most other on-demand streaming services.

You get exactly one local channel with Paramount+: a live feed of your area CBS affiliate ($11.99 tier only). Since all CBS shows are available on-demand, Paramount+ doesn’t offer a cloud DVR to record anything from its live feed.

Also, the live schedule doesn’t include any local or news programming, just CBS’s primetime series. You’ll have to find The Drew Barrymore Show on your own.

As of June 2023, Paramount+ has become the streaming home for all things SHOWTIME. The standalone SHOWTIME app will eventually be phased out, but classic SHOWTIME will still be available as an add-on to cable, satellite, and live-streaming TV services.

The Paramount+ Premium plan has now become Paramount+ with SHOWTIME, with a two-dollar price increase to $11.99 per month. For all the quality content you get with this bundle, though (SHOWTIME has shows like the new hitYellowjackets and old favorites like Dexter), it’s not a bad deal.

Along with its plans and pricing changes, Paramount+ also upped its simultaneous streams from two to three, which is the average for most streaming services (what’s up with two, Hulu?).

The Premium tier of Paramount+ allows for offline downloads of most content for viewing on-the-go, minus Comedy Central, BET, MTV, Smithsonian, and some Nickelodeon shows; Essentials does not.

While the shows and movies sections are neatly sortable by genre, like “Comedy,” “Drama,” “Documentary,” etc., the hubs don’t offer the same navigation. Sure, it would be redundant to search “Comedy” within the Comedy Central hub, but some specific options (like “Standup” or “Animation”) would be nice.

Paramount+ streams in standard 2.0 stereo audio.

If you were already a CBS All Access subscriber, you now have Paramount+, so it’s not like we have to convince you to switch—it’s the same service, but with more shows. For those who were on the fence about CBS All Access, however, Paramount+ is easier to define: it’s not just NCIS and Star Trek reruns.

The real selling point of Paramount+ is its deep catalog of shows from CBS, Comedy Central, BET, Nickelodeon, and MTV—that’s a gold mine of content by itself. The original shows are getting better all the time, but Paramount+ is going to have to step up production to compete with Netflix and Hulu. Plus, the new bundle with SHOWTIME also helps bump up Paramount+’s quality.

Lastly, Paramount+ doesn’t offer much for sports or movie fans. Unless you’re into European soccer and dusty flicks you haven’t watched since the last time you visited a Blockbuster Video, that is.

Methodology

Our experts employed hours of hands-on testing with Paramount+, rating the streaming service on bang for your buck, reliability, features, and customer satisfaction. Then we matched up Paramount+ with other on-demand streaming services head to head to give a clearer picture of its strengths and weaknesses. For more information on our methodology, check out our How We Rankpage.