You don't need a cable bill to keep watching Cartoon Network. Here's every way to stream it online, and how to do it for free.
Reviewed and updated July 2026 by our cord-cutting team · 7 options
Cartoon Network is available without cable on Sling TV Blue, DIRECTV, Hulu with Live TV, YouTube TV, Spectrum TV Stream, or Spectrum TV Choice.
The cheapest way to watch Cartoon-network is Spectrum TV Stream for $45/month.
Animation may be a saturated market, but no one can do it quite like Cartoon Network. Home to entertainment that defies age-group classification like Adventure Time, Teen Titans Go!, and The Amazing World of Gumball, it's proven itself to be the go-to channel for TV and animation fans alike.
We routinely follow over a hundred live TV and streaming services in the US, closely monitoring their plans, features, and channel lineups. All of that work is on our cord-cutting hub.
Beyond this, we have been reviewing the best on streaming services since 2013, recommending highly-rated but little-known movies and shows: we find the gems that you haven't yet watched, that you will probably like.
Yes, with a free trial. Cartoon Network is on Hulu + Live TV, and you can watch it free for Hulu + Live TV's 3-day free trial. Cancel before it ends and you pay nothing.
Craving more cartoons? If you already have Hulu, we don’t need to tell you about the many animated films and shows Hulu has in their library. But you don’t need to limit yourself to what they have on-demand. You can add 100+ more channels, including Cartoon Network, to watch new cartoons live.
It caps you at two simultaneous streams, the fewest of the big live-TV services; lifting that cap costs about $10 more a month.
Hulu + Live TV plans
Our breakdown of Hulu + Live TV →
Yes, with a free trial. Cartoon Network is on DIRECTV, and you can watch it free for DIRECTV's 5-day free trial. Cancel before it ends and you pay nothing.
You can watch Cartoon Network on DirecTV Stream. Like its cable counterpart, the streamer has a huge selection of channels in high definition, but unlike cable, you can stream up to 20 screens at the same time in your home and 3 screens outside. That means, if you’re sharing your plan with the whole family, you don’t have to sacrifice TV time to watch what someone else likes. You can simply check out Cartoon Network on another compatible device.
The price climbs steeply between tiers, and a regional sports fee gets added on top.
DIRECTV plans
Yes, with a free trial. Cartoon Network is on YouTube TV, and you can watch it free for YouTube TV's 7-day free trial. Cancel before it ends and you pay nothing.
YouTube TV has the widest channel line-up out of all the streaming services listed here, so it’s no surprise that Cartoon Network is also included. They also air other channels like Adult Swim, Disney, and Nickelodeon in their base plan, as well as host hundreds of animated shows on-demand like Rick and Morty, Bob’s Burgers, and South Park. Want even more content? You can bundle premium add-ons like HBO Max, Crunchyroll, and Cinemax to your existing plan.
At around $83 a month it's one of the priciest options, and add-ons push the bill past $100 fast.
YouTube TV plans
No, not free. Sling TV carries Cartoon Network but has no free trial, so you pay from day one — at $45.99/mo it's the second-cheapest way to watch Cartoon Network on this list.
Out of Sling TV’s two base plans, Sling Blue is the one with Cartoon Network. That’s because, instead of streaming Disney-owned channels, Blue has more entertainment channels for you to enjoy. Blue also has more local news channels than Orange, though it’s because of that that the price varies from state to state. However, even without our discount, Sling Blue is also the cheapest way to watch Cartoon Network.
There's no ESPN on the Blue lineup, and local channels only come in a handful of markets.
Sling TV plans
No. Fubo doesn't carry Cartoon Network.
No. Philo doesn't carry Cartoon Network.
No. Paramount+ doesn't carry Cartoon Network.
No. Peacock doesn't carry Cartoon Network.
No. Frndly TV doesn't carry Cartoon Network.
No. Disney+ only streams the Disney family (ABC, FX, Nat Geo, ESPN and the Disney kids channels), and Cartoon Network isn’t part of it. The best way to watch Cartoon Network without cable is YouTube TV above (free-trial).
Yes, but on demand only. HBO Max carries Cartoon Network’s shows on demand, since Warner Bros. Discovery owns both. You get the back catalog to stream any time — you just don’t get the live feed or its schedule.
When Warner Bros. Discovery folded discovery+ into HBO Max, the whole Discovery and Turner library came with it, so those networks stream on demand here.
No. There’s no Prime Video Channels add-on for Cartoon Network, so Prime can’t stream it on demand or live. The best way to watch Cartoon Network without cable is YouTube TV above (free-trial).
The honest way to watch Cartoon Network for free is a free trial, and the trick is not to spend them one at a time. Start one, then start the next when it ends, and you can string together a few weeks of free live TV back to back, usually enough to cover a tournament or a playoff run without paying for a month.
If you're cutting cable for Cartoon Network, odds are you want Investigation Discovery too. It's a sister channel, so every service above that carries Cartoon Network carries Investigation Discovery as well, and the same free trials get you both. See our full guide to watching Investigation Discovery without cable for the per-service breakdown.
| Service | From | Free trial | Plans | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hulu + Live TV |
$82.99/mo | 3 days | 2 | Get it |
| DIRECTV |
$94.99/mo | 5 days | 4 | Get it |
| YouTube TV |
$9.99/mo | 7 days | 2 | Get it |
| Sling TV |
$45.99/mo | None | 3 | Get it |
Cartoon Network and the US services that carry it are geo-locked to the United States, so your login stops working the moment you leave the country. A VPN fixes that: connect to a US server and the service sees a US address again. The catch is that streaming platforms actively block most VPN traffic, so the VPN you pick matters far more than the service does. These three reliably get back in:
A huge US server network (thousands of IPs across 15-plus cities) with SmartPlay DNS baked into every server, so streaming just works without extra setup. The best value of the top tier on a two-year plan.
Best for streaming Cartoon Network with: Hulu + Live TV, Sling TV
Get NordVPN →The budget pick, and the one to get if the whole household travels: it allows unlimited simultaneous devices on one account, plus a Smart DNS for TVs. Reliable with the on-demand and lifestyle services.
Best for streaming Cartoon Network with: Hulu + Live TV, YouTube TV
Get Surfshark →Whichever you pick, connect to a US city first, then sign in to Cartoon Network or the service that carries it as normal. Choose a VPN with a money-back window so you can confirm it un-blocks Cartoon Network before you commit.
No. Cartoon Network is a cable channel and doesn't broadcast over the air, so an antenna can't pick it up. An antenna only gets the free broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, PBS, The CW), which pair nicely with one of the services above; check which of those reach your address here.
Every service that carries Cartoon Network runs on the major streaming platforms, so you can watch on just about any TV, phone, or console. Here's how, device by device:
On Roku, you can watch Cartoon Network through Hulu + Live TV, DIRECTV, YouTube TV, and Sling TV. To set it up, add the channel from the Roku Channel Store, sign in, and open Cartoon Network in the live guide.
On Amazon Fire TV, you can watch Cartoon Network through Hulu + Live TV, DIRECTV, YouTube TV, and Sling TV. To set it up, download the app from the Amazon Appstore, sign in, and open Cartoon Network in the live guide.
On Apple TV, you can watch Cartoon Network through Hulu + Live TV, DIRECTV, YouTube TV, and Sling TV. To set it up, install the app from the App Store, sign in, and open Cartoon Network in the live guide.
On Android TV & Google TV, you can watch Cartoon Network through Hulu + Live TV, DIRECTV, YouTube TV, and Sling TV. To set it up, grab the app from the Google Play Store, sign in, and open Cartoon Network in the live guide.
On Chromecast, you can watch Cartoon Network through Hulu + Live TV and Sling TV. The gap: DIRECTV and YouTube TV don't offer a Chromecast app. To set it up, cast it from your phone or use the built-in Google TV app, sign in, and open Cartoon Network in the live guide.
On Samsung & LG smart TVs, you can watch Cartoon Network through Hulu + Live TV, DIRECTV, YouTube TV, and Sling TV. To set it up, install the app from your TV's own store (Tizen or webOS), sign in, and open Cartoon Network in the live guide.
On phones & tablets, you can watch Cartoon Network through Hulu + Live TV, DIRECTV, YouTube TV, and Sling TV. To set it up, download the app from the App Store or Google Play, sign in, and open Cartoon Network in the live guide.
On game consoles, you can watch Cartoon Network through Hulu + Live TV, YouTube TV, and Sling TV. The gap: DIRECTV doesn't offer a game consoles app. To set it up, download the app from the Xbox or PlayStation store, sign in, and open Cartoon Network in the live guide.
Cheapest is the question everyone starts with, and it's the wrong place to stop. A $35 plan that drops Cartoon Network the month after you sign up hasn't saved you anything. So the first number we pay attention to is the real one, what you owe after the introductory month ends, not the figure in the ad. From there it comes down to whether the channels you actually want sit in the base plan or get stranded in an add-on, how the service behaves day to day (a slow app and a useless DVR wear on you faster than you'd expect), and how much of a fight it puts up when you decide to leave.
Whatever lands at the top of a list like this is the service that gets most of that right for the most people. Once in a while that's also the cheapest one. Usually it isn't.
Some of the links on this page are affiliate links, which means we may earn a commission if you sign up through one. That money is part of how we pay writers and keep the site free to read.
The people who test, price-check, and update our cord-cutting coverage.
