DStv Premium is cheaper than you think

DStv Premium offers incredible value for money when considering the number of streams or broadcasts it allows per subscription after its recent changes.

In April 2025, DStv increased its concurrent streaming device limit to two devices on its Premium, Compact Plus, and Compact plans.

The company reduced this number to one device in February 2022 as part of a crackdown on password sharing and piracy.

However, some DStv subscribers said they found the restriction excessive, as it prevented viewers in the same household from streaming different live channels simultaneously.

Although MultiChoice said it was developing a “Home Base” feature to help mitigate against this, it instead relaxed the streaming limit earlier this year in a surprise announcement.

Sharing a subscription between members of the same household can make a streaming package much more affordable.

With each member able to watch their own content when they please, multiple breadwinners would be more likely to contribute to the subscription cost.

DStv’s own terms and conditions explicitly allow users to willingly share their login credentials with others.

However, it is against DStv’s terms and conditions for customers to charge other users for access to their subscriptions.

MyBroadband counted the effective cost that each household member who used one stream or broadcast would need to contribute to a DStv subscription.

As a result of the change implemented in April 2025, DStv’s month-to-month satellite packages now include at least four concurrent viewing environments.

In addition to the satellite broadcast via a decoder, subscribers get two Internet-based streams on any smart device or browser in any location in the country, as well as a mobile-only stream.

DStv Premium also includes a Showmax subscription worth R99 per month. Each of these subscriptions can have up to two concurrent streams.

That means there is a total of six devices can watch a stream or broadcast on one month-to-month Premium satellite subscription at the same time.

With DStv Premium on satellite priced at R979 per month without an Access Fee, the effective price per viewing environment would be about R163, less than a Netflix Standard subscription.

If one ignored the Showmax subscription and only considered the four DStv streams or broadcasts, the effective price would be R245 per DStv viewing environment.

On the other side, if the value of the Showmax subscription was deducted from the total price, the per-device DStv concurrent viewing price drops to R220.

A slightly more affordable option is the DStv Premium 24-month contract at R949 per month, which includes the Access Fee of R125 with an additional broadcasting viewing environment.

This option works out to a R190 effective cost per DStv viewing environment, ignoring the two Showmax streams.

For those without a decoder, the next most affordable DStv Premium plan is the streaming-only 12-month contract priced at R699 per month.

This supports concurrent streaming on up to two devices of any type and a mobile device for a total of three viewing environments.

The option works out to R233 per stream when ignoring the Showmax streams or R140 when including them.

If flexibility is a greater concern, then the month-to-month DStv Stream Premium package at R799 effectively costs R266 per DStv stream.

Including the two Showmax streams takes the cost down to R160 per stream.

The table below shows the effective cost per concurrent viewing environment for four DStv Premium packages.