DIRECTV Ends Decade-Old $5 HBO Deals for Legacy DIRECTV NOW Customers
A small group of holdout streamers who've paid the same discounted add-on prices for seven-plus years will finally see their bills jump to current rates next month.
What’s changing
DIRECTV is closing out one of the last relics of the cord-cutting era’s early promo wars. A small group of legacy DIRECTV NOW customers — some who signed up back in 2016 or 2017 — have been quietly paying the same discounted rates on premium add-ons like HBO Max, STARZ, and Cinemax for seven years or more. That ends with billing cycles starting on or after September 27, 2026, when those accounts move to DIRECTV’s standard, current pricing.
The actual dollar figures
For the oldest accounts, this is a real jump. Some customers have been paying as little as $5 a month for HBO under promotions dating back to when AT&T was aggressively pushing DIRECTV NOW as a scrappy alternative to satellite. After the change:
- HBO Max rises to $18.49/month
- STARZ rises to $11.99/month
- Cinemax rises to $10.99/month
For someone still on that old $5 HBO deal, that’s a jump of $13.49 a month — or roughly $162 more a year — just for one add-on. Stack STARZ or Cinemax on top and the annual difference climbs into the hundreds of dollars for anyone who was grandfathered into multiple discounted premiums.
Importantly, these new prices aren’t some special penalty — they match what DIRECTV already charges everyone else who adds these services outside of an introductory promo period. This is DIRECTV closing a longstanding pricing gap, not inventing a new fee.
Who pays more, and who doesn’t
This only affects a narrow slice of subscribers: legacy DIRECTV NOW accounts that never lost their original promotional add-on pricing when everyone else’s discounts expired. If you’re a newer DIRECTV streaming customer already paying current rates for HBO Max, STARZ, or Cinemax, nothing changes for you.
The base live TV package for affected customers is untouched — this is strictly about the premium add-ons. DIRECTV NOW itself has long since been rebranded and folded into DIRECTV’s broader streaming lineup, but a handful of accounts kept their original add-on deals alive through all of that.
Why now
The move fits a pattern. DIRECTV has already made adjustments to its Genre Packs and Signature packages earlier in 2026, and premium streaming services generally have been raising list prices industry-wide as content costs climb. HBO Max’s own standalone ad-free tier already runs $18.49 a month, so DIRECTV is essentially syncing its last outlier accounts with where the market — and its own current customers — already sit.
What to do about it
DIRECTV says it’s giving affected customers 30 days’ notice, so the higher prices won’t hit until the first bill after the September 27 cutoff. If you’re one of the legacy customers still enjoying an old discounted rate on HBO Max, STARZ, or Cinemax, check your next bill or account notice carefully.
If the new price isn’t worth it to you, you can drop the add-on before the change takes effect and avoid the increase entirely. If you want to keep it, no action is needed — you’ll simply be billed at the current standard rate going forward, same as any other DIRECTV streaming customer. Either way, it’s worth confirming exactly which add-ons on your account are affected, since the base live TV package itself isn’t changing.