Nintendo Switch Online price UK: individual vs family plans

Every Nintendo Switch Online tier, priced

Split across 8 accounts, Nintendo's own maths gives about £0.33 per person per month for the standard family plan (£31.49 ÷ 8 ÷ 12) and about £0.63 with the Expansion Pack. For two people, the family plan (£31.49) already costs less than two individual memberships (2 × £17.99 = £35.98).

What Switch Online includes on the standard plan

The standard membership covers online play in games that support it, a library of 190+ classic NES, Super NES and Game Boy games, cloud backup of save data, the Nintendo Music smart-device app and, on Nintendo Switch 2, GameChat. For many households the deciding feature is online play: if your children play games like Mario Kart online, a membership is needed for that.

Save Data Cloud is easy to overlook but worth considering if a console is shared, dropped or replaced, because it backs up compatible save files.

Family plan maths for a busy household

The family membership covers up to eight Nintendo Accounts in the same family group, which can be spread across several consoles. Here is the cost per account per year at different household sizes, standard plan (£31.49):

• 2 accounts: about £15.75 each
• 4 accounts: about £7.87 each
• 8 accounts: about £3.94 each

With the Expansion Pack family plan (£59.99): about £30.00 each for 2, £15.00 for 4, or £7.50 for 8 accounts. The family group admin manages members via the Nintendo Account website.

Is the Expansion Pack worth an extra £17 a year?

On individual plans the Expansion Pack costs £17 more (£34.99 vs £17.99). It adds Nintendo 64, Game Boy Advance, Virtual Boy and SEGA Mega Drive libraries, GameCube games on Switch 2, and selected DLC (Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass, Animal Crossing: New Horizons Happy Home Paradise, Splatoon 2 Octo Expansion), plus Nintendo Switch 2 Edition upgrade packs for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.

The honest test is the DLC: if someone in your house would otherwise buy one of those included DLC packs, check its current eShop price. If it costs more than the £17 difference, the Expansion Pack pays for itself on that alone, with the retro games as a bonus. If nobody would buy the DLC, it comes down to how much you value the classic libraries.

Switch 2 owners: what changes

Nintendo lists GameChat and GameCube classics as Nintendo Switch 2 features, so a Switch 2 household gets more from the same membership price than an original Switch household. Nintendo also notes that existing members can continue to use the membership's benefits on Switch 2. If you are still on an original Switch and not planning to upgrade, ignore the Switch 2-only features when you weigh the price.

Classic game libraries: what each tier unlocks

Nintendo calls these libraries Nintendo Classics. On the standard membership you get NES, Super NES and Game Boy collections. The Expansion Pack adds Nintendo 64, Game Boy Advance, Virtual Boy and SEGA Mega Drive collections, and on Nintendo Switch 2 a Nintendo GameCube collection. Nintendo describes these libraries as growing, so the exact list changes over time.

For value, the question is simple: would anyone in your house play these older games regularly? If yes, the Expansion Pack's extra £17 a year (individual) or £28.50 a year (family) buys a lot of play. If the retro libraries would sit unused, the standard plan does the job of unlocking online play for less.

Nintendo Switch Online per hour, worked through

Because Switch Online is mostly an online-play pass, the per-hour sum is about the hours of online play it unlocks plus any classic games you play:

• Individual, £17.99 a year: at 50 hours a year, about £0.36 per hour; at 150 hours, about £0.12.
• Family, £31.49 a year, four players at 50 hours each (200 hours in total): about £0.16 per hour.
• Family + Expansion Pack, £59.99 a year, four players at 75 hours each (300 hours in total): about £0.20 per hour.

These figures illustrate the method with stated assumptions; your own hours will differ. Count only time spent online or in the included libraries.

Keeping Switch Online costs under control

• Pick the 12-month family plan if two or more people in your home play online.
• Turn off automatic renewal in your Nintendo Account if you'd rather decide each year.
• Check that the games you play actually need online play before subscribing; plenty of Switch games are single-player.
• Use parental controls to restrict eShop spending if children have their own accounts. See our guide to paying less for games.

Lending games in a Nintendo family group

If you're already in a Nintendo Account family group for Switch Online, Nintendo Switch 2's virtual game cards can help too. Nintendo says a purchased digital game can be lent to a member of the same family group for 14 days, after which it returns automatically. Some software can't be lent. That can save buying a second copy of a game that two children want to play at different times. Details are on Nintendo's UK virtual game card guide.