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| Getty Images; Alyssa Powell |
As subscriptions pile up, Americans are teaming up with friends on family plans just to keep their heads above water.
The old cliché was staying on your parents' phone plan well into adulthood. The new twist? Jumping onto a family plan with your friends instead. It’s the same shared cost advantage, minus the awkwardness of your mom still covering your monthly TikTok binge. Of course, this setup only works if your friends are reliable enough to Venmo you on time.
Subscription fatigue is hitting hard. Between phone services, streaming platforms, fitness apps, and media outlets, people are juggling a growing list of monthly charges. Most of these services might seem manageable on their own, but together they start to add up fast the average American now pays for five video streaming subscriptions each month. By the time you’ve added Netflix, HBO Max, Peacock, Paramount+, and whatever new platform just launched, you might wonder if cable wasn’t the better deal after all.
Naturally, consumers have gotten creative. They cycle through free trials, share passwords with loved ones, or stick with family plans long after leaving home. But many are reinterpreting “family” more loosely, joining forces with friends or even strangers to cut costs on mobile plans, streaming bundles, and app subscriptions. Sometimes it means bending the rules, sometimes just stretching the definition of who counts as family.
“Word-of-mouth is a very powerful acquisition channel, and you could think of this as an extended free trial for all the freeloaders,” says Daniel McCarthy, an associate professor of marketing at the University of Maryland.
With more Americans staying single and opting not to have children, the financial burden of solo living is rising. Being on your own may be a fulfilling choice, but it comes with a so-called “singles tax” no partner to split rent, vacation costs, or even a family-size meal deal. Even those with partners or families are facing the pressure of inflation and a higher cost of living. Many are turning to what can best be described as “friend socialism”: teaming up with friends to make everyday expenses like Spotify or phone plans more manageable. Sure, the app may ask for one household address, but you’re unlikely to be asked for DNA samples.
Traditionally, breaking off from your parents’ family plan was considered a milestone of adulthood. Yet many people stick around because of the convenience and savings. A recent survey showed that one in five American adults are still on their parents’ phone plans. While this number has decreased slightly in recent years, one in three still have some or all of their mobile bill paid by mom and dad. Despite being called “family” plans, there’s rarely a strict requirement to share DNA. Carriers like T-Mobile and AT&T openly allow customers to add friends, not just relatives. And people are taking them up on it.
McCarthy calls it an “extended free trial,” and in some cases, that’s exactly what it is.
Take Nicole Nikolich, an artist from Pennsylvania, who partnered with her roommate to join a shared phone plan as they became more financially independent. “We’d save a ton if we just did it together,” she recalls. Now, the plan is under her name she calls herself the “mom” of the group and her roommate simply Venmos her each month. Since then, she’s also added her partner. It’s worked well so far, save for one hiccup when someone lost a phone and they all had to visit the store together. “If someone needed it, I’d add them,” she says, “as long as they’re one of my more responsible friends.”
Others go even further. Rose Petargue, based in Missouri, shares her Nintendo Switch Online family plan with people she met through Reddit. She doesn’t know them personally one lives in Turkey, another in the Caribbean but she doesn’t charge them. The subscription costs her $79.99 a year, which she considers affordable, and she suspects some of her online co-users wouldn’t be able to pay for it otherwise. Individual accounts range from $19.99 to $49.99. “Gaming has a social element, and I realized not everyone could access it,” she says. The risk is minimal. If someone misbehaves and gets banned by Nintendo, she doesn’t believe it would affect her. “I just add their emails and that’s that.”
Still, shared plans aren’t always seamless. Money complicates relationships, and not everyone keeps up their end. One coworker shared that their ex stopped paying their portion of a shared phone plan, justifying it by saying the rest of the group earns more and can afford to cover it. I’ve been in a similar boat I run a YouTube TV family plan with friends. It started at $35 a month back in 2018 and now costs $82.99. I’ve thought about asking others to chip in, but part of me feels guilty even bringing it up.
Diane Brown, who lives in New England, has no such reservations. She shares her Peloton account with a wide circle her daughter, sisters, in-laws, and friends as long as they set up their own user profiles. The subscription allows up to 20 accounts, and at $44 a month, she’s happy to share. Every now and then, she checks to see who’s using it. If someone isn’t active, she quietly removes them. She doesn’t announce it. “I don’t feel bad about sharing it,” she says. One of her friends liked the experience so much, they eventually bought their own bike.
From a company’s point of view, the ideal world is one where every user pays full price for every service. But it’s not that black and white.
“It depends on the company’s growth phase and how strong their customer retention is,” says McCarthy.
Sharing can help companies acquire users. Netflix, for instance, encouraged password sharing in its early days a move that helped it go mainstream. The company didn’t start clamping down until it was generating over $30 billion a year and had built a loyal user base. By then, people were hooked enough to pay up.
“Sharing builds habit and familiarity,” says Robbie Kellman Baxter, a consultant for subscription-based businesses. “It’s a valuable way to drive engagement.”
These shared arrangements can also make users more loyal. If you and four friends are tied into a joint Verizon phone plan, are you really going to coordinate a mass migration to AT&T? Ending the service would mean inconveniencing several people, not just yourself.
For ad-supported platforms, it’s even more beneficial to have more eyeballs even if they're on one paid account. These companies care increasingly about total engagement and viewing hours. “It’s less like the old gym model, where the ideal customer paid but never showed up,” says McCarthy. “Now it’s about consistent usage and time spent.”
So yes, sharing accounts is a practical way to lower expenses as subscriptions and prices soar. It also builds a sense of community. If everyone in your group chat is watching Love Island USA, it’s probably because someone shared their Peacock login. I share my Peloton account with a friend, and I’ll sometimes peek at her workout log or lack thereof just to see how she’s doing.
Not everyone has the option of joining their biological family’s plan. Some people are estranged, or just don’t want to rope their technologically clueless dad into a shared Apple Music account when he still listens to the same CD in his car on repeat.
Some companies are starting to recognize that “family” doesn’t always mean blood. An AT&T spokesperson acknowledged that families “can mean a lot of different things,” and said they’re perfectly fine with customers joining family plans with friends, roommates, co-workers, and neighbors. To that end, AT&T even rolled out a payment-splitting tool to make managing costs across users easier.
You might not be able to split your mortgage with a friend across the country, but you can loop them into your Strava plan or a streaming bundle. In the end, a “family plan” can be whatever family you choose.
