You don't need a cable bill to keep watching VH1. Here's every way to stream it online, and how to do it for free.
Reviewed and updated June 2026 by our cord-cutting team · 11 options
Video Hits One is the sister channel of MTV, once with the same focus but now heavily leaning on reality TV programming. Some recent succesful shows from the channel include Mob Wives, RuPaul's Drag Race, and the revival of America's Next Top Model.
You can watch VH1 on Fubo, DIRECTV, Philo, Hulu with Live TV, Sling TV + Lifestyle Extra Bundle, YouTube TV, or Spectrum TV Stream.
The cheapest option to watch VH1 is Philo for $25/month.
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Yes, with a free trial. VH1 is on Fubo, and you can watch it free for Fubo's 7-day free trial. Cancel before it ends and you pay nothing.
Fubo is a live TV and on-demand streaming service. The platform had it beginning as a soccer stream service, but it quickly became popular as a viable alternative to expensive cable subscriptions in the U.S, offering an attractive bundle of more than 100 live channels as well as an endless array of on-demand movies.
It leans heavily on sports, and a regional sports fee of a few dollars up to about $17 by ZIP gets added on top.
Fubo plans
Yes, with a free trial. VH1 is on DirecTV Stream, and you can watch it free for DirecTV Stream's 5-day free trial. Cancel before it ends and you pay nothing.
Named the “best all-around streaming service for cord-cutters” by Rolling Stone, DIRECTV tries to be all the good things about cable without any of the hassle. It has a big selection of channels, possibly the best stream quality in the market, and great DVR capability. For example, unlike with competitor Youtube TV, your DVR recordings on DirecTV will be the same quality as the live stream (often in 4K). The service also comes with a decent monthly price tag, and Netflix-style practicality that allows you to stream Live TV from anywhere by downloading the app. Within your home, you can stream on up to 20 devices (!), and from outside your home you can stream on up to three devices.
The price climbs steeply between tiers, and a regional sports fee gets added on top.
DirecTV Stream plans
Our breakdown of DirecTV Stream →
Yes, with a free trial. VH1 is on Philo, and you can watch it free for Philo's 7-day free trial. Cancel before it ends and you pay nothing.
Philo is one of the most interesting ways to cut the cord out there: it offers over 70 channels for as little as $25. If you don’t watch sports or a lot of local TV, but want access to everything else, it’s the perfect Live TV option. Their Bundle+ subscription adds access to AMC+, HBO Max, and Discovery+.
It carries no sports and no local channels, so it only covers entertainment and lifestyle networks.
Philo plans
Yes, with a free trial. VH1 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.
The “Hulu + Live TV” plan mixes Hulu’s exclusive offering of Originals with around 90 TV channels (the channels available depend on where you live). If you already have Hulu, getting the Live TV addition is usually cheaper than subscribing to another Live TV service. And if when you want to cancel the Live TV plan, you can click “cancel” on Hulu which will give you the option to keep the On-Demand part while canceling the Live TV.
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. VH1 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 quickly grown into one of the best choices for Live TV, offering both local and national channels like ESPN, CNN, Comedy Central, and others. Youtube TV’s marketing claims that by getting the platform, you could save up to $500 a year on cable. One major draw of the platform is unlimited cloud DVR storage that’s included in the $82.99 plan.
It’s also one of the most widely available Live TV streaming services, as you can get it on virtually every device from Fire TV to XBOX to Smart TV brands like LG.
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. Sling TV doesn't carry VH1.
No. Paramount+ doesn't carry VH1.
No. Peacock doesn't carry VH1.
No. Frndly TV doesn't carry VH1.
The honest way to watch VH1 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 VH1, odds are you want CBS too. It's a sister channel, so every service above that carries VH1 carries CBS as well, and the same free trials get you both. See our full guide to watching CBS without cable for the per-service breakdown.
| Service | From | Free trial | Plans | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fubo |
$84.99/mo | 7 days | 2 | Get it |
| DirecTV Stream |
$86.99/mo | 5 days | 3 | Get it |
| Philo |
$28/mo | 7 days | 1 | Get it |
| Hulu + Live TV |
$82.99/mo | 3 days | 2 | Get it |
| YouTube TV |
$9.99/mo | 7 days | 2 | Get it |
Cheapest is the question everyone starts with, and it's the wrong place to stop. A $35 plan that drops VH1 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.
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