Game Pass price UK: Essential, Premium, Ultimate and PC compared

Every Xbox Game Pass tier, priced

Ultimate costs £203.88 over 12 months at £16.99 a month (12 × £16.99). If you would otherwise buy, say, three new games at £60 each in a year that are all on day-one Game Pass, buying would cost £180 and you would keep them; Ultimate only wins if you also play more than that from the library, or value the cloud and EA Play extras.

Which Game Pass plan covers what

Microsoft's own comparison sorts the four plans like this. Essential is the entry plan: a smaller library of 50+ games, online console multiplayer and a small cloud allowance. Premium raises the library to 200+ games and adds Xbox-published games within one year of launch rather than on day one. Ultimate is the plan with new games on day one, a 400+ game library, EA Play, Fortnite Crew and Ubisoft+ Classics. PC Game Pass is a PC-only plan with 300+ games, day-one releases and EA Play, but no console play.

If you only play on a Windows PC, PC Game Pass at £10.99 covers the day-one releases for £6 a month less than Ultimate.

All four plans renew automatically until cancelled, Microsoft notes. Online console multiplayer is listed on Essential, Premium and Ultimate, so anyone who only needs to play paid games online on an Xbox console can look at Essential first.

The 2026 Ultimate price cut and the Call of Duty change

On 21 April 2026 Microsoft announced on Xbox Wire that Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass would get cheaper, with prices varying by region. The same announcement said future Call of Duty titles would no longer join Ultimate or PC Game Pass at launch, and would instead be added during the following holiday season, roughly a year later. Existing Call of Duty games already in the library stay available.

£1 trials and what happens after them

On 3 November 2026 the UK Xbox store showed an introductory offer of £1.00 for 14 days on Essential, Premium, Ultimate and PC Game Pass, followed by the normal monthly price. Two points are worth knowing before taking any trial:

• The subscription continues automatically. Microsoft's page says so next to each plan.
• Put a reminder in your calendar a couple of days before the trial ends, and cancel recurring billing in your Microsoft account if you don't want to continue. You normally keep access until the end of the period already paid.

Offers like this change often, so treat the £1 figure as what was shown on the check date, not a permanent feature.

Game Pass cloud hours: what the limits mean

Each console plan now lists a monthly cloud playtime allowance: 5 hours on Essential, 10 on Premium and 15 on Ultimate. Cloud play lets you stream games to supported devices without downloading them. If you mainly play downloaded games on a console, the allowance won't matter. If you relied on cloud play as your main way of gaming, check how many hours a month you actually stream, because a heavy cloud user could hit the cap.

PC Game Pass is listed as a PC-only plan, so cloud allowances on the console plans don't apply to it in the same way. If you are choosing between Premium and Ultimate mainly for cloud play, the difference is 5 extra hours a month for £6 more; whether that is worth it depends on how often you stream rather than download.

Game Pass per hour of play: a worked example

Our signature metric is pounds per hour. With Game Pass it depends on how much you play, not on any single game. Suppose you spend 20 hours a month playing library games on Ultimate:

• £16.99 ÷ 20 hours ≈ £0.85 per hour
• At 5 hours a month: £16.99 ÷ 5 ≈ £3.40 per hour
• At 40 hours a month: £16.99 ÷ 40 ≈ £0.42 per hour

Run the same sum with your own hours. A light player can be better off on Essential (£6.99) or buying one game in a sale. A heavy player who works through lots of library games will see the per-hour cost fall fast. Compare with our subscription-or-buy maths.

Picking a Game Pass plan by how you play

• Mostly online with friends on console, few new releases: Essential at £6.99 covers online console multiplayer and a 50+ game library.
• Like Xbox-published games but happy to wait: Premium at £10.99 adds a 200+ game library and Xbox-published games within a year of launch.
• Want new games on day one, on console and PC: Ultimate at £16.99, which also adds EA Play, Fortnite Crew and Ubisoft+ Classics.
• PC only: PC Game Pass at £10.99 has day-one games and EA Play without console features.

If someone in the house already pays for Fortnite Crew or EA Play separately, include that saving when comparing Ultimate with the cheaper plans; Microsoft lists both as Ultimate benefits.

Downsides to weigh before subscribing

• Games leave the library over time; you don't own them.
• Day-one releases are an Ultimate and PC Game Pass feature only; Premium gets Xbox-published games within a year.
• Call of Duty no longer arrives on day one.
• Monthly billing adds up: £16.99 × 12 is £203.88 for Ultimate.
• The library and benefits can change; always check Microsoft's current plan list.