IPTV vs Now TV: Which Is Better Value?
The IPTV vs Now TV comparison is really a question about value: is it better to buy Sky’s content through official passes, or get a vastly bigger channel line-up through a commercial IPTV subscription? NOW, owned by Sky, sells flexible monthly passes for entertainment, movies and sport with no contract and no dish. It is the easiest legal way to watch Sky channels without a Sky subscription. But the headline prices hide extras, and the maths changes dramatically once you add them up.
In this guide we compare NOW memberships and IPTV subscriptions across price, content, sport, picture quality and flexibility, using NOW’s current 2026 pricing, so you can see which one genuinely gives you more for your money.
What NOW Actually Is
NOW is Sky’s contract-free streaming service. Instead of one subscription that unlocks everything, you buy passes for what you want: an Entertainment pass for TV shows and live channels, a Cinema pass for films, and a Sports pass for Sky Sports. Each pass is available on a rolling monthly basis with no long-term commitment, and you can stack them or cancel them independently.
The content is the real Sky line-up. The Entertainment pass includes live channels such as Sky Showcase, Sky Max, Sky Witness, Sky Atlantic, Sky Comedy, Sky Documentaries, Sky Crime, Sky Nature, Sky Sci-fi, Sky Arts, Sky News and Sky Kids, plus kids’ favourites like Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network, and box sets of HBO and Sky originals. The Cinema pass unlocks Sky Cinema’s channels and on-demand film library. The Sports pass gives you all 12 Sky Sports channels, including Sky Sports Main Event, Sky Sports Premier League, Sky Sports F1 and the Sky Sports+ bonus streams.
For a fuller picture of how NOW’s prices stack up against the alternatives, Comparitech’s NOW TV guide keeps an updated rundown of every membership and add-on.
IPTV vs Now TV: Price Compared in 2026
Here are NOW’s current headline prices: the Entertainment pass costs £9.99 a month, the Cinema pass costs £9.99 a month, and the Sports pass costs £31.99 a month on the flexible rolling plan, £28 a month on a 6-month saver, or £14.99 for a single-day pass covering 24 hours of all Sky Sports channels. Those are the starting figures, not the final bill, as we will see in the next section.
A commercial IPTV subscription covers all of this territory in one plan. XtreamHD’s pricing is £9.99 for one month, £24.99 for three months, £39.99 for six months and £59.99 for twelve months, which works out at £5 a month on the annual plan. That single subscription includes more than 20,000 live channels, covering the Sky entertainment channels, Sky Cinema-style movie channels, the full Sky Sports and TNT Sports line-ups and a 60,000-title on-demand library, with two simultaneous connections. Browse the IPTV channel list to compare it against what you watch on NOW.
| Option | Monthly cost | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| NOW Entertainment | £9.99 | Sky entertainment channels and box sets |
| NOW Cinema | £9.99 | Sky Cinema channels and film library |
| NOW Sports (flexible) | £31.99 | All 12 Sky Sports channels and Sky Sports+ |
| NOW Sports (6-month saver) | £28.00 | Same, with a 6-month commitment |
| NOW Sports (day pass) | £14.99 | 24 hours of all Sky Sports channels |
| All three NOW passes | £51.97 | Entertainment, Cinema and Sports combined |
| IPTV (annual plan) | £5.00 | 20,000+ channels incl. Sky, TNT Sports, movies, 60,000 VOD |
The headline comparison is stark: all three NOW passes cost £51.97 a month, or £623.64 a year, while a year of IPTV costs £59.99. But before declaring a winner, we need to talk about NOW’s add-ons, because the base experience is deliberately limited.
The Hidden Extras: Boost, Adverts and 720p
This is where NOW’s value proposition gets complicated. Out of the box, NOW streams at 720p, which is noticeably softer than full HD on a large TV. It also includes adverts: you will see commercial breaks on live channels and, on the base tier, ads around on-demand content too.
To fix this, NOW sells two add-ons. Boost costs £6 a month and unlocks 1080p full HD, removes ads from on-demand shows and films, adds Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound and allows streaming on two devices at once. Ultra Boost costs £9 a month and adds 4K, HDR and Dolby Atmos with three simultaneous streams. So the real cost of a NOW subscription that matches what most people expect from a modern streaming service is the pass price plus £6 or £9.
Run the maths on a realistic household setup. NOW Entertainment (£9.99) plus Boost (£6) is £15.99 a month. Add Cinema (£9.99) and you are at £25.98. Add Sports (£31.99) and the monthly total hits £57.97, or £63.97 with Ultra Boost for 4K. Over a year, that is £695 to £768 for the full NOW experience.
IPTV subscriptions do not work this way. HD is standard, 4K streams are included where available, there are no platform-inserted adverts and no upsell to unlock the resolution your TV already supports. Two connections are included as standard. It is worth saying plainly: NOW’s tiered quality model is one of its weakest points, and it is the area where IPTV wins without breaking a sweat.
Content Head-to-Head: NOW vs IPTV
On content, we need to be fair to NOW, because it has genuine exclusives. Sky Atlantic’s HBO pipeline, shows like The Last of Us, Succession, House of the Dragon and True Detective, arrives on NOW’s Entertainment pass, often within hours of the US broadcast. Sky’s own originals, from Gangs of London to Chernobyl-era prestige drama, are there too. The Cinema pass gets major films months before they reach other streaming services, and the back catalogue of Sky Cinema is deep.
IPTV’s advantage is not exclusives but total coverage. The same Sky entertainment channels appear in the IPTV channel list, alongside everything NOW cannot offer: TNT Sports, Eurosport, beIN Sports, ESPN, international news, US networks, and channels from dozens of other countries. The 60,000-title on-demand library means most films and box sets are available on demand anyway, even if the very latest Sky Cinema premieres arrive a little later than on NOW itself.
| Content | NOW | IPTV |
|---|---|---|
| Sky Atlantic and HBO box sets | Yes, exclusive and fast | Channels included; box sets via VOD |
| Sky Cinema premieres | Yes, earliest window | Movie channels and VOD, slightly later |
| Live Sky entertainment channels | Yes | Yes |
| Sky Sports channels | Yes (Sports pass) | Yes |
| TNT Sports | No | Yes |
| International channels | No | Yes, extensive |
| On-demand library size | Curated, Sky-focused | 60,000+ titles |
| Offline downloads | Yes, on selected content | Generally no |
The honest summary: NOW wins for viewers who specifically want HBO and Sky originals as fast as possible and the earliest film premieres. IPTV wins for everyone else on breadth, because it includes the Sky channels too while adding sport, international TV and a far bigger on-demand library.
Live Sport: NOW Sports vs IPTV
Sport is where the value gap becomes a chasm. NOW’s Sports pass is genuinely flexible: £14.99 for a day pass is a fair price to watch a single Super Sunday or a Grand Prix without any commitment, and the £31.99 monthly pass suits football season. The 12 Sky Sports channels plus Sky Sports+ cover the Premier League games Sky shows, F1, cricket, golf, darts and more.
But NOW Sports has two hard limits. First, it does not include TNT Sports, so Champions League nights, the Saturday 12:30 Premier League kickoffs and much of the rugby and MotoGP need a separate TNT subscription at around £30 a month. A football fan who wants everything legally is therefore paying roughly £62 a month for NOW Sports plus TNT Sports. Second, the base 720p picture and adverts apply to sport too unless you add Boost or Ultra Boost, which feels particularly poor value when you are already paying £32 a month.
IPTV puts all of it in one subscription: Sky Sports, TNT Sports, Eurosport, beIN Sports and ESPN, typically in HD with 4K for the biggest events, for £5 a month on the annual plan. Our Premier League without Sky guide explains exactly which channels carry which competitions. The one thing to check is your broadband, because live sport is the most demanding stream of all: our internet speed guide sets out what your connection needs to deliver.
Contracts, Trials and Flexibility
Both services are refreshingly free of long contracts. NOW’s passes roll monthly and can be cancelled online in a few clicks, and the day passes need no commitment at all. NOW occasionally offers 7-day free trials on selected passes, and discounted 6-month savers appear regularly for sport.
IPTV is similarly flexible: the £9.99 monthly plan has no tie-in, and the longer plans simply discount the price for paying upfront. The free 24-hour IPTV trial is more generous than NOW’s occasional trials because it unlocks the full service, every channel and the whole VOD library, rather than a limited taster. There is also a 7-day money-back guarantee on paid plans. Setup takes about ten minutes following our IPTV setup guide, on a Firestick, smart TV, Android box or phone.
One practical difference: NOW is an official Sky product with polished apps, proper customer support and guaranteed reliability. IPTV quality varies by provider, which is exactly why a free trial matters: test the channels you actually watch, at the times you watch them, before spending anything.
Apps, Devices and Day-to-Day Experience
This is the one area where NOW clearly has the edge, and it deserves an honest mention. NOW’s apps are proper, polished products: they are available on every smart TV platform, Firestick, Roku, Apple TV, games consoles, phones and browsers, with profiles, continue-watching rows, decent recommendations and reliable performance. When something goes wrong, there is a real customer support team. For viewers who value a slick, zero-fuss experience, NOW feels like a premium service in a way that IPTV apps do not.
IPTV apps such as TiviMate, IPTV Smarters and Smart IPTV are functional rather than beautiful. They present a channel guide, an on-demand catalogue and favourites lists, and they do the job well, but there are no glossy recommendations, no multiple user profiles in most cases, and setup involves entering a playlist URL or login details rather than just signing in. That said, once configured they are stable, and our guide to the best devices for IPTV shows which hardware gives the smoothest experience. A Firestick 4K Max with TiviMate is the sweet spot for most living rooms: fast, cheap and simple enough for the whole family once it is set up.
There is also a practical middle ground. Nothing stops you running both: NOW’s polished app for the HBO box sets you care about, and the IPTV app for live sport and everything else. They coexist happily on the same Firestick or smart TV.
IPTV vs Now TV: Which Is Better Value?
It depends on which NOW passes you would actually buy:
- Film fans: NOW Cinema at £9.99 a month is a fair price for the earliest premieres and the Sky Cinema library. But IPTV’s movie channels and 60,000-title VOD library cover most of the same ground for half the price, so only dedicated premiere-chasers get full value from the pass.
- Drama fans: NOW Entertainment at £9.99 is the only way to get HBO shows at speed without a Sky contract. If The Last of Us on release night matters to you, keep it. If you are happy to wait, IPTV’s VOD library will have the box set soon enough.
- Sports fans: IPTV wins decisively. NOW Sports (£31.99) plus TNT Sports (£30) is around £62 a month for full coverage, versus £5 a month for everything on an IPTV annual plan. There is no honest maths where NOW comes out ahead here.
- The everything household: all three NOW passes with Ultra Boost cost up to £63.97 a month. IPTV costs £5 a month. Even adding NOW Entertainment (£9.99) on top of IPTV for the HBO exclusives, you are at £15 a month, less than a quarter of the full NOW stack.
The pattern is consistent: NOW charges fairly for each individual pass, but the moment you want more than one thing, the total climbs fast, and the Boost upsell adds insult to injury. IPTV’s flat pricing means the second, third and twentieth interest cost you nothing extra.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is NOW owned by Sky?
Yes. NOW is Sky’s streaming brand, offering Sky’s channels and content on flexible passes with no dish and no long contract.
Can I watch TNT Sports on NOW?
No. TNT Sports is a separate service owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, available through HBO Max or discovery+. NOW only carries Sky’s channels, so Champions League and TNT’s Premier League games need a second subscription.
What resolution does NOW stream at without Boost?
720p as standard, with adverts on live channels and around on-demand content. Boost (£6 a month) raises this to 1080p and removes on-demand ads; Ultra Boost (£9 a month) adds 4K, HDR and Dolby Atmos.
Can I pause and record live TV on NOW?
Pausing and rewinding live TV is limited on NOW compared with Sky Q or a recorder box. It is designed primarily for streaming rather than as a full PVR replacement.
Is IPTV legal in the UK?
The IPTV technology itself is legal, but licensing varies between providers. We answer the common questions properly in our IPTV FAQ.
Can I use NOW and IPTV together?
Yes, they work fine side by side on the same devices. A common setup is IPTV for the bulk of viewing plus the NOW Entertainment pass during the months when a big HBO series is airing.
The Bottom Line on IPTV vs Now TV
NOW is a good product sold in an expensive way. Each pass is fairly priced on its own, the content is genuinely premium, and the flexibility is excellent. But 720p with adverts as the default, paid Boost tiers to reach the quality your TV already supports, and no TNT Sports mean the real-world cost of a satisfying NOW setup is far higher than the headlines suggest.
IPTV, at £59.99 for a full year, delivers more channels, more sport and more on-demand content than the entire NOW stack at roughly a tenth of the price. It lacks NOW’s polish and its day-one HBO premieres, but for pure value there is no contest. If you are on the fence, run the free 24-hour IPTV trial alongside your NOW passes for a day and compare what you actually watch. Most people find the decision makes itself.
