Apple is primarily a hardware company, though they continue to expand their services division each year, offering a wide range of subscriptions from gaming and entertainment to productivity and fitness. Now, with a collection of seven paid services, which ones are worth it - and which ones can you skip?

iCloud+

iCloud is perhaps the most essential service offered by Apple, and comes with extra hidden perks and enhances the ecosystem experience for users who use multiple Apple devices.

iCloud+ expands the free 5GB of iCloud storage up to 12TB, though most individuals are likely to be fine with the lower 50GB, 200GB and 2TB plans.

All iCloud+ plans provide you with additional privacy features and other services, such as:

  • Private Relay - hides your IP when browsing on Safari
  • Hide My Email - Create custom addresses that forward to you, so you don't share your personal address
  • Custom Email Domain - Personalise your email with a custom domain
  • HomeKit Secure Video - Encrypted video from home security cameras in the Apple Home
  • Apple Invites - Event management software for sending out invites

Most notably, Apple users on an iCloud+ plan may have higher usage limits with the new Siri AI, that releases later this year. An iCloud+ plan would be ideal if you regularly hit usage limits.

Apple Music

Apple Music is the company's music streaming service, built-in with the Music app found on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Vision Pro, Apple Watch and Apple TV 4K.

It is also directly integrated into HomePod, by asking Siri to play a song.

An individual plan costs £11.99/month in the UK, though Apple offer a £5.99 student bundle that includes both Music and TV. Apple's pricing is quite competitive, compared to other services:

  • Apple Music - £11.99
  • Spotify Premium - £12.99 (+£1 a month / +£12 annually)
  • Amazon Music - £12.99 (+£1 a month / +£12 annually)
  • YouTube Music Premium - £10.99 (-£1 a month / -£12 annually)

Prices as of 14th August 2026

YouTube Music Premium remains the cheapest option, though Apple Music is generally considered to have better audio quality with Dolby Atmos and Lossless audio.

YouTube Music remains the best deal if you subscribe to YouTube Premium for £12.99 a month. Premium subscribers get full access to YouTube Music and ad-free viewing on YouTube, all for the same price as a Spotify or Amazon Music Plan.

Apple TV

Apple TV is a great value service, providing users with high-quality original TV series and films. The service, formerly known as Apple TV+, emphasis its focus on quality over quantity, with Apple reportedly making a loss on the service.

Some of Apple TV's biggest hits include:

  • Ted Lasso, 90% Rotten Tomatoes score
  • Severance, 95% Rotten Tomatoes score
  • Slow Horses, 97% Rotten Tomatoes score
  • Silo, 92% Rotten Tomatoes score
  • The Morning Show, 69% Rotten Tomatoes score

The service has been especially great this year, as at least one new piece of content releases every week this year. 2026 has also seen some great new shows, including Widows Bay, Cape Fear, Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed and Lucky. You can find out more about what's on Apple TV here.

Apple Arcade

Apple Arcade is an ad-free gaming service, with a catalogue of primarily mobile games that are best experienced on iPhone or iPad.

The services top 3 games right now are all puzzle games, though they do offer some more in-depth games, such as a newly released Madden NFL American Football game, Football Manager 26 and open-world fishing adventure game Dredge+.

Arcade costs £6.99 a month and supports family sharing of up to 5 people. That brings the cost down to roughly £1.39 per person, per month.

The appeal of the service may be to parents, who can give their child Apple Arcade so they don't view or click-through the many, and sometimes weird, mobile ads.

To others, Apple Arcade may not be worth it, as you can find many of the same titles at a low cost on other platforms, such as Steam.

Apple News+

Apple News+ provides you access to over 400 publications in one subscription that costs £12.99 a month.

The collection includes The Times, The Telegraph, BBC Science Focus Magazine, Variety, Forbes and WIRED.

The service may be extremely great value if you read many of these publications and hold many individual subscriptions with these publications.

Other perks of the service includes:

  • Offline reading
  • Family sharing

Apple News+ has limited availability, currently only available in the UK, US, Canada and Australia.

Apple Fitness+

Apple Fitness+ is a service that provides pre-recorded training and workout sessions, including strength training, yoga and meditation sessions.

The service is built-in to the Fitness App, found on iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and Apple Watch.

Apple users who use an Apple Watch or AirPods with the heart rate sensor, can get live real-time metrics with their workout session.

The service costs £9.99 a month, and the price has not changed since launch in late 2020.

The 12 workout types supported are:

  • HIIT
  • Yoga
  • Pilates
  • Strength
  • Treadmill
  • Cycling
  • Rowing
  • Dance
  • Kickboxing
  • Mindful Cooldown
  • Meditations

Those looking to up their fitness may benefit from this service, with the ability to start a session at any time, and from home.

Apple Creator Studio

Creator Studio is Apple's newest paid-for service, launching earlier this year.

The service is a creative suite of apps, competing with third-party offerings such as the Adobe Suite and Microsoft Office.

The Apps include:

  • Final Cut Pro
  • Logic Pro
  • Pixelmator Pro
  • Keynote
  • Pages
  • Numbers
  • Freeform
  • Motion
  • Compressor
  • Mainstage

Whilst Keynote, Pages and Numbers are free, they gain additional premium content, such as a content library, with a creator studio subscription.

The service costs £12.99 a month or £129 a year. Students and educators get a great deal, at £2.99 a month or £29 a year.

All Apps in this bundle are available to buy individually, but are slightly different apps. For example, the one-time purchase apps do not yet support the new liquid glass design and it is unclear what the future of these apps looks like.

To buy the entire bundle outright, it would cost £679.94.

For reference, that is the same cost of about 4 years 5 months on the individual Creator Studio Plan.

Apple One, Bundles & Offers

If you find yourself making use of multiple Apple services, you may benefit from Apple One or other promotions the company offers.

Apple One

Apple One is a bundle of Apple Services, reducing the monthly overall cost compared to if you were to subscribe to everything individually.

There are three plans:

  • Individual: £18.95/month
  • Family: £24.95/month
  • Premier: £36.95/month

The individual plan includes 50GB iCloud+ storage, Apple TV, Apple Music & Apple Arcade. This would usually cost £29.96 a month.

The family plan includes 200GB iCloud+ storage, the same services and the individual plan and can be shared with up to 5 other people.

The premier plan includes 2TB iCloud storage, TV, Music, Arcade, News+, Fitness+ and supports family sharing.

Apple Music Student Plan

Students can subscribe to Apple Music for £5.99 a month, that's £6 less a month compared to the individual plan. This plan also includes Apple TV for free. Both services combined would usually cost £21.98.

Apple Creator Studio Student & Educators Plan

Students and Educators can claim Creator Studio for £10 off each month, at £2.99. The Annual plan also drops, from £129 a year, to just £29.

Final Thoughts

For many users, they may find that iCloud+, Apple Music and Apple TV are the best value services worth subscribing to. Whilst the other services are much more niche, they may be useful to fitness enthusiasts, readers and creatives and services such as News+ might even save you money, by bundling all your favourite publications under one subscription.