Some Sky customers will see their bills rise by up to £72 a year from April. See how you'll be affected, and what you can do to dodge the latest round of hikes.

Sky Go Extra works as a premium service to Sky Go, since Sky Go extra charges a small fee to grant users access to some features. Those features may include the ability to stream content in up to four devices and being able to download content from this platform to a mobile device or computer to watch later. Browse the Sky TV channel list and read our guide to each bundle. Compare TV channels included in the Sky Signature Entertainment package (which now includes Box Sets), with listed channels for the Kids, Ultimate On Demand (Netflix) and HD bundles. Including Sky Sports, Cinema, Catch-up, apps and additional services.

Sky hikes prices

Millions of Sky customers face paying up to an extra £72 a year after it announced its latest round of price hikes.

The size of your bill increase will vary depending on your existing deal, with the average Sky customer paying an extra £3 a month or £36 a year.

Price rises will be capped at an extra £6 a month, or £72 a year.

Sky says that less than one in 10 (8%) of customers will pay the maximum price hike.

TV and broadband bills will rise from 1 April, while home phone prices will rise from 1 May.

Full list of Sky price hikes

Here’s a run-through of the various packages, and how prices will change:

• Sky Broadband Essential will increase by £3 a month (from £22 to £25 a month);
• Sky Broadband Superfast will increase by £1 a month (from £27 to £28 a month);
• Sky Talk Anytime Extra will increase by £2 a month (from £10 to £12 a month);
• Sky Talk International Extra will increase by £2 a month (from £12 to £14 a month);
• Sky Signature TV package will increase by £1 a month (from £25 to £26 a month);
• Multiscreen will increase by £1 a month (from £14 to £15 a month);
• Sky HD will increase by £1 a month (from £6 to £7 a month);
• Sky Ultimate will increase by £1 a month (from £4 to £5 a month);
• BT Sport will increase by £2 a month (from £25 to £27 a month).

The affected Sky TV and broadband customers will see their bills jump from 1st April, while home phone customers will pay more from 1st May. They will be notified of the price changes by post by 27th March.

Broadband customers who are still in the minimum term of their contract can leave penalty-free if they act within 30 days of receiving their notification.

Time to move?

If you're among those affected, you might want to fight back. There are thankfully loads of options available to you, which we'll run through in this piece.

Do you really need the whole bundle?

The full Sky package has so many channels, and chances are you only ever watch a tiny fraction of them.

It’s quite easy to remove or cancel certain packages from your account. Go to My Sky on TV or Broadband & Talk (depending on what you want to amend) and sign in.

Then select the product you would like to remove from the Your Package section. Just follow the links to make the changes.

Even if you only have a phone and broadband package, go through your bills to see how much of your free calls allowance you actually use. There could be an opportunity to move to a cheaper calls package.

Use one-off Now TV passes

Alternatively, you could ditch the Sky TV part of your package and use Now TV passes when you want to watch popular series such as Game of Thrones or catch up with sports.

Now TV passes allow you to stream Sky services on multiple devices via an app or set-top box.

There are five NOW TV passes to choose from: movies, entertainment, sports, kids and hayu (for reality shows).

The Entertainment Pass is £9.99 a month. You'll have access to over 300 box sets and 13 pay TV channels, which aren't on Freeview.

The 'Cinema Pass' is a bit more expensive at £11.99 a month but you'll be able to watch over 1,000 films and a new premiere every day.

Sky Sports day passes start from £9.98 if you want to catch up with the latest matches/races/events. Alternatively, you can get a month's pass for £33.99, which automatically renews every month.

The Kids and Hayu packages are the cheapest at just £3.99 a month and £4.99 respectively.

The Kids package allows your little ones to watch programmes from their favourite channels, including Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon, while the hayu package is ideal for reality TV fans.

You can try the Entertainment, Cinema, Kids TV or Hayu pass with a seven-day free trial.

Haggle!

In short, haggling is the best thing you can do to get a cheaper deal with Sky. Sky practically tells you to do it on its ‘Stay with Sky’ page!

All you have to do is call 03337 594 464.

If you’re not confident speaking on the phone, it’s worth noting down what you’re going to say, taking every possible outcome into account.

Have some negotiating phrases ready and use past problems as ammunition.

Try to avoid calling at peak periods like Mondays, lunchtimes, weekends and just after work. You want to get as much time with the operator as possible, so call when it’s quieter.

There are three sure-fire phrases to getting you a better deal: ‘I’m leaving’, ‘I’m paying too much for my current package’ and ‘x offers a similar deal cheaper.’

To back up your argument, check the best buys on the market right now to see if you can genuinely get a better deal elsewhere. You can start your search at BroadbanGenie.

The main aim is to get through to the retentions department (more commonly known as ‘disconnections’) as they have a lot more power to give you discounts than the customer service team do.

Be charming. Acting rude or entitled will put the operator on the defensive, meaning that you’re less likely to get a better deal.

You don’t necessarily have to go with the first offer either, giving you wiggle room to haggle even more!

That said, try not to push the operator too much as it’ll ruin your hard work. Listen out for verbal cues like defensive language, hesitation and impatience.

If they call your bluff, say you need to check with your partner/flatmates/parents first. You’ll hopefully speak to someone different next time.

And if they go silent, wait for them to fill in the gap.

They’re hoping that you’ll accept the price to end the silence, so don’t give in. Our editor saved £240 just by threatening to leave for a cheaper deal.

Find out more at How to haggle and save a fortune.

Ask for extras

Ask if they can chuck in any freebies such as free calls or extra channels, particularly if they can’t bring your cost down.

Have a go at blagging movies or an extra sports channel on top of your current deal.

Be prepared to leave to get what you want

If you don't get a decent offer, then you might be better off simply leaving, as long as you won't have to pay any exit fees of course.

Leave it a little while, and you will likely be contacted by Sky with some sort of return offer. These vary by customer, but we've heard tales of 33% off for five years, or even 75% off for a year.

Alternatively, you can attempt to play the cashback game. You can pocket some decent cash when you take out a deal with Sky from sites like Quidco.

Add more services

Add more? Isn’t that a bit contradictory?

Sometimes taking multiple services from one provider can reduce your bill.

For example, if you just have broadband with a provider then chances are it's more expensive than if you have a phone and broadband package.

If you do decide to add more services, aim for an upgrade offer rather than just adding a service to your current package.

By just adding a service the standard price will likely apply, meaning that you lose out on substantial savings.

As always, haggle – see if you can get the extra services at a better price than advertised!

You can check Sky's full range of products and offers here.

Of course, the downside to signing up to more packages and products is that you'll likely be particularly hard hit when the next round of price hikes rolls around (assuming you're out of contract).

*This article contains affiliate links, which means we may receive a commission on any sales of products or services we write about. This article was written completely independently.

With a huge selection of entertainment, movie and sports channels to choose from, it's easy to see why Sky TV is so popular. But the prices for a full Sky subscription can be eye-watering.

While the lure of shows such as Westworld and Game of Thrones can be appealing, the thought of being tied in to an expensive contract can feel off-putting. The good news is you don't have to take out a long Sky subscription to watch Sky channels.

Read on for more information on TV services that will let you watch Sky TV without a Sky subscription, including Now TV, Virgin Media and TalkTalk.

Use our round up of the best and worst TV and broadband providers to discover how satisfied Sky customers are in comparison to those with other suppliers.

Try Now TV

Now TV is an internet TV streaming service powered by Sky. It offers live streaming and on-demand content from popular Sky channels - so, you can watch Sky shows as they're going out live, or catch up on them at a later date.

Crucially, you don't have to be a Sky subscriber to use Now TV. Instead you simply buy 'passes' for a day, week or month to access the channels that you want. When your pass expires it rolls over into a monthly subscription fee, but you can cancel at any time. See how Now TV compares to popular streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime, using our TV streaming service reviews.

Streaming services broadcast over the internet, so you don't need a satellite dish to watch Now TV (though you do need a broadband connection of at least 2.5Mbps or a mobile signal of 180Kbps if you plan to watch using 3G or 4G).

Sky Go Premium Package

You'll also need a device that can use the Now TV app. Some smart TVs come with this preinstalled, but if yours doesn't, you can watch Now TV in a few different ways.

One of the easiest, cheapest ways to watch Now TV is to buy a dedicated Sky Now TV box or smart stick, which cost as little as £15. This may even include a trial of free passes to watch the content, which in effect pays for the cost of the Now TV box itself.

A YouTube box will also give you access to the Now TV app - or you can install the app on a tablet, smartphone or PC.

Find out more in our guide: What is Now TV?

Add Sky channels to a service from another provider

If you've already got a TV subscription with a different provider, such as Virgin Media or BT TV, you can add most of Sky's channels to these services.

To do this, you add a 'bolt on' to your existing pay TV service. For example, you can pay BT £16 a month to add 11 Sky Movie channels to your package. There's usually no contract to do this, you just pay on a monthly basis.

If you're looking for some channels to keep the little ones happy, you can simply add children's channels to yourTV and broadband bundle - for example TalkTalk's Kids Boost adds nine children's channels, including Nickelodeon, Boomerang and Cartoon Network.

Use a shared Sky subscription

If a friend or family member already subscribes to Sky, then you can register as a secondary user and still watch Sky shows.

Now TV (see above), for example, allows you to register up to four compatible devices (such as a Now TV box, a laptop, or a tablet). The service lets you watch programmes on two devices at the same time, so four members of an extended family won't all be able to tune into Game of Thrones simultaneously on different devices.

Alternatively, Sky Go is a streaming service that allows Sky subscribers to watch programmes away from the home. This lets Sky customers register two devices (or four, if you pay more for Sky Go Extra).

In effect, this would let you log in to watch Sky programming if you used the account details of a family member who has a Sky subscription. However, users are meant to be part of the same household as the primary Sky account holder, according to Sky.

Read our Sky TV and broadband review to find out what Sky customers had to say about the service they receive in our latest satisfaction survey.

...or, stick with Freeview

If you decide that none of the above options work for you, then one alternative is to stick with Freeview. It may not offer the same sports or movie range as Sky, but it still gives you a huge selection of channels for no cost at all (other than the charge for a TV licence).

With the addition of a Freeview PVR, you can pause, rewind and record live TV, as well as setting a planner and series-link. These are all features you would get with a Sky box. You won't, however, have access to the same sports, movies and entertainment channels. Head to our round-up of the Best Buy Freeview PVRs to see which models impressed the experts in our lab.

If that's not enough for you, and you want even more channels, then Freesat offers more than 200 channels and on-demand TV from the likes of the BBC and ITV. To get it, you just need a Freesat box or a TV with Freesat built-in, plus a Freesat satellite dish. As with Freeview, there's no ongoing subscription cost. Read in depth reviews of all the latest models using our Freesat PVRs and set top box reviews.

Five features to look out for when buying a power bank

Best and worst UK mobile networks revealed for 2021

New 2021 TVs: are their launch prices cheaper than last year’s ranges?

Sky Go Premium Internet

Which? to remove Best Buys from mobile phones with less than a year of support

Sky Go Premium Plus