Paramount+ Premium (Formerly “with Showtime”): What the Top Tier Adds
The plan once sold as “Paramount+ with Showtime” is now branded Paramount+ Premium. It costs $13.99 a month or $139.99 a year against $8.99 for the Essential tier, and the difference comes down to Showtime, a live CBS feed, and the removal of ads from on-demand viewing.
★ Verified at a glance
- Premium: $13.99/month or $139.99/year
- Essential: $8.99/month or $89.99/year
- Live CBS feed included — Essential does not carry it
- All SHOWTIME shows and films included
- UFC numbered events and Fight Nights included at no PPV cost — on both tiers
A name change worth knowing about
If you subscribed under the “with Showtime” branding, this is the same plan. Paramount has folded the Showtime name into a straightforward Essential / Premium split, which makes the comparison cleaner but means older write-ups — including the earlier version of this page — refer to a tier that no longer goes by that name.
The three things Premium adds
- The live CBS feed. Essential does not carry it. If you want NFL on CBS as it airs, this is the tier that does it.
- All SHOWTIME shows and films — the full library, not a selection.
- No ads on on-demand content. Essential is ad-supported.
The UFC point applies to both tiers
Under Paramount’s seven-year UFC agreement running through 2033, all numbered events and Fight Nights are included at no additional pay-per-view charge. This is not a Premium exclusive — it applies to Essential too, which materially changes the value calculation if UFC is your reason for subscribing at all.
What we could not verify
Paramount+ renders its help-centre articles with JavaScript, and we could not read official figures for simultaneous streams, maximum resolution, or download rules on either tier. Rather than repeat numbers quoted elsewhere without a source we can point to, we are leaving them out.
One documented limitation we can state: live TV still carries advertising even on this ad-free tier. Paramount’s own wording is that SHOWTIME is ad-free “excluding live TV, which includes ads”.
Sources: Paramount+ plans · Paramount+: UFC streaming deal
How this was checked: figures on this page were read from the sources linked above on 26 August 2026. We have not tested this product ourselves; where a figure is the maker’s claim rather than an independent measurement, we say so. Prices change — check the retailer before buying. See our Editorial Policy.
