Millions of Netflix fans could slash bills with simple trick to save money

YOU might be accidentally overpaying for Netflix – and that’s not ideal.

Thankfully it’s really easy to see if you’re paying over the odds for a Netflix account.

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It’s a great time to do it, as the cost of living soars and the Christmas shopping season is truly upon us.

Netflix has four different plans on offer: Basic With Ads, Basic, Standard and Premium.

You need to fully understand them to save a bit of cash – as they they each have their own pricing and perks.

For the Basic With Ads plan, you’re paying £4.99/$6.99 a month.

You’ll get fairly low-res 480p video quality, and the ability to view Netflix on a single device at any one time.

But you’ll have to endure ads, and you can’t download any content for offline viewing.

When it comes to the Basic plan, you’ll be paying £6.99/$9.99 per month.

This is the same as Basic With Ads, but you get a totally ad-free experience.

And you can download on one supported device at a time.

If you upgrade to the Standard plan, you’ll pay a higher monthly fee of £10.99/$15.49.

Now you’re getting Full HD 1080p footage, as well as the option to watch or download Netflix content on two devices simultaneously.

Finally there’s the Premium plan, coming in at a lofty £15.99/$19.99 per month.

It’s the most luxurious plan, netting you the best available video quality on Netflix right now: 4K Ultra HD resolution.

You also get HDR (or High Dynamic Range), which better contrast and a wider range of colours.

And you’ll also be able to watch and download on four different devices at once.

Are you overpaying for Netflix?

To save money, you need to find out if you’re on the right plan.

If you’re happy to watch ads, you can save loads of money each month.

And if you only ever watch TV via the app on a small iPhone screen, you might be perfectly happy with the 480p resolution.

Similarly, if you don’t have a 4K TV and you never use more than two devices at once, you shouldn’t be paying for Premium when Standard will do.

And your internet might not be fast enough to stream 4K anyway. Netflix recommends a minimum download speed of 25Mbps.

To check, go onto Netflix and search ‘test patterns”.

Play one and look for “3840 x 2160” in the top-right corner: that means you’re getting full 4K.

It’s also possible that even if you have a hi-res laptop screen, you might not be getting the best quality.

Some browsers don’t support anything higher than 720p streaming for Netflix.

For instance, you can’t stream 4K Netflix in Google Chrome even if you’ve got a 4K laptop.

So you might be better off on a Standard or even Basic plan.

Also remember that while sharing your Netflix account isn’t allowed outside of your household, it’s fine to use the same login in one house.

So don’t feel forced to have multiple Netflix accounts in a single home when you could all be splitting the bill together.

You can change your subscription tier at any time by logging into the Netflix website.

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