Americans Are Joining Their Friends On Family-Plan Subscriptions

The cost of subscriptions keeps rising, so Americans are joining family plans with friends, acquaintances, and even strangers to stay on budget.

The Big Picture: The average American adult is staying single longer, has a 20% chance of still being on their parents’ phone bill, and pays for five premium subscription services each month — on top of extras like music streaming and fitness content. For many, bending the rules to join a “chosen family” plan may be the only way to keep up with the subscription economy’s rising prices.

Behind The Sharing: Insider’s Emily Stewart calls this new trend “friend socialism.”

• Most “family plans” don’t explicitly require members to be related, so users are adding anyone who will responsibly pay the bill on time.
• Other family plans require everyone to share the same address, but without active verification, people often just list themselves under one roof in their settings.
• Some companies, like Peloton, are aware of the practice and don’t discourage it — seeing it as a low-effort way to draw people into their ecosystem or boost ad exposure.
• Other companies, like Netflix and Disney+, prioritize average revenue per user (ARPU) and actively crack down on password sharing or fraudulent family plans, banking on the idea that users will pay full price once caught.

Checkout: Robbie Kellman Baxter, a consultant for subscription-based companies, told Insider that allowing family plans with friends is “a useful strategy to build usage, understanding, and habit formation.” Cutting off that access could trigger a domino effect of group cancellations and drive customers toward competitors. To avoid that, some providers are making sharing even easier — AT&T, for example, rolled out a tool to split payments between members.

Future Renewal: Considering the loneliness epidemic facing America, family plans with friends could offer a small way to build a consistent community — and may even spur some companies to roll out features that boost engagement among account sharers.