BBC: World News & Stories
Breaking News, Podcasts, Video
How much does BBC: World News & Stories cost?
Prices are current as of 29 Sept 2026.
2 subscriptions from $8.99
In the United States, BBC: World News & Stories has 2 subscriptions priced $8.99 – 89.99.
| Subscription | Period | Price |
|---|---|---|
| The Monthly Plan | Monthly | $8.99 |
| The Annual Plan | Annual | $89.99 |
See what BBC: World News & Stories costs in all 2 countries →
10+ alternatives to BBC: World News & Stories
| BBC: World News & Stories |   CNN: Live & Breaking News |   Washington Post |   The Guardian - US & World News |   The Economist: News & Analysis |   AP News |   USA TODAY: US & Breaking News |   NBC News: Breaking & US News |   NPR: National & Local News |   CBC News: Breaking & Local |   POLITICO | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rating / 5 | 4.5 | 4.7 | 4.7 | 4.8 | 4.8 | 4.6 | 4.5 | 4.7 | 4.6 | 4.5 | 4.7 |
| Reviews | 227K | 2.2M | 724K | 633K | 470K | 404K | 253K | 172K | 72K | 60K | 58K |
| Released | 2010 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2018 | 2010 | 2012 | 2009 | 2009 | 2011 | 2010 |
| Monthly price | $8.99 | $3.99 | $13.99 | $14.99 | $6.90 | — | $14.99 | $5.99 | — | — | — |
| Annual price | $89.99 | $29.99 | $139.99 | $129.99 | $249.00 | — | $89.00 | $59.99 | — | — | — |
The going rate for each plan in United States, in its own currency, shaded from the cheapest price on the row to the dearest. Plans fewer than four in ten of the priced apps sell are left out.
BBC: World News & Stories reviews
4.5 out of 5, based on 227,062 reviews.
What people like
- Reliable source for trusted international news coverage
- High quality journalism you can trust
- Easy to use interface overall
What they complain about
- Most news is locked behind a paywall now
- Aggressive ads interrupt your reading and listening
- Canadians and Americans are forced to pay
- App crashes or disappears articles on iPhone
Thank you bbc
Thank you for your quality journalism. Thank you for making it available and easy to use. Thank you for improving my knowledge of the world. And for the fun content too 🤩
Not as good as the previous app.
It wasn’t broken so why try to fix it. I used the BBC WorldService app to listen to live programming every morning and every evening in the car. It was easy to open the app and hit the play button to get the news. Now it’s impossible to find a program while driving. The listening experience is just not worth the work to find a program now.
Good news, bad ads
When you pay for a subscription you should not need to deal with aggressive ads that disrupt the experience and force accidental clicks.
Excellent app but….
I wish I could have a preference option to open a specific feature. Since I normally open the app to listen to the BBC World Service, I’d like not to have to see the home page first. Also, it takes too long for past programs to be able to stream…much longer than the now discontinued BBC World Service iOS apps. 🤔
Too many articles require subscription
More times than not, you click on a link, wait for it to open, only to be told that you can’t read it without a subscription. What a waste of time! Why even show me the option if I can’t read it?
BBC punishes Canadian listeners
It’s completely unfair that Canadians must pay to listen to the BBC but not Australians, the French, other Europeans and listeners around the world. Americans too must pay but not as much as Canadians when currency is converted. Why does the BBC punish Canadians?
Subscription Based
They started charging. Unreal. Why does everything in life cost $14.99 a month now?
Good way to listen to world service
.
What? How?
How can the BBC News Radio be so, so good, and the BBC websites and their written news be so bad, and trashy?!
Fell off the bicycle
I have long loved this app. Recently the app developers let it get screwed up. When I merely want to watch a video with sound full-screen the Skip Ad button fails to function, then the sound will not come on, then it skips to the next random video. After I attempt it 4 times, maybe my video will play. The user experience has become a shambles. Sigh!
Paywall Appears Gone
Excellent journalism. Thank you for removing the paywall for Canadians.
Sadly it’s not free anymore
It’s very unfortunate that BBC decided to implement paid subscription for their US readers. I had to look elsewhere for reliable news source. Luckily, GroundNews is free.
Unbiased
BBC is a trustworthy international news service
Well organized and easy to navigate
Updating 8/25/26: most of BBC is now paywalled. Content is mediocre and absolutely not worth paying a cent for.
No Streaming to TV option
I bought a month of the BBC subscription service to see how it was. Sadly, it does not have a way to airplay on my Samsung TV. I don’t know if Samsung or the BBC handles this, but if I can't view the content on the TV, I will be a canceling the subscription.
Payment
I paid for the year on June 29th of this year. But you have cut off my access to in depth news stories. Please get in touch. Normajody@hot mail.ca
Goodbye
You have to pay a subscription now? No thank you. Goodbye BBC news.
Advertising
I use the BBC to catch up on world news every day, sometimes several times a day. I find the repeated advertising on video clips very frustrating and I frequently turn off the video as soon as the advert starts. On occasions there are adverts before news of tragic events and I find that particularly distasteful.
Crashes all the time
Is unusable and yet the bbc is going to deprecate the other apps on which I can listen to the world service.
Very odd
While the overall design of the app is good, I have had two chronic oroblems with it. First, while it works perfectly on iPad, the iPhone version doesn’t work for me at all. I am able to read a few lines of one story on my iPhone before it crashes. But far more annoying is the disappearing content. I have literally seen articles that I read on the app just disappear once I close them. If I try to find them again using search in the app or browsing by category, they are simply gone - as if taken away by the Gestapo in the dark of night, never to be seen again. How is that even possible?
Noticias del mundo en español
Mi primera fuente de información cada día.
Have to pay to read now
For the first time in the decades I’ve used this app, it asked me to pay. The BBC gets funded by the British government and they want to double-dip by having people pay a subscription. It isn’t worth it as the quality of the stories and writing are not worth paying for; there is a political bias when you read certain articles which is unprofessional. And now they want me to pay for these bias outlooks? Nope.
BBC Sounds
The app is high quality and I use it very frequently. I live in the Republic of Ireland and request that BBC sounds would be available again.I miss the quality of your podcasts. Regards.
USELESS
… unless you PAY. You still can see the tittles but that’s it. I have deleted it after many years of using it.
Abonnement requis
Nouvelles et articles de qualité sur une nouvelle version de l’application. Seulement dommage que ce soit avec un abonnement et surtout automatiquement renouvelable.
Centrism
Generally balanced news, with occasional lapses.
Subscription Required
This was my go to news app for international news for a long time, but now every article I click on requires a subscription which is unfortunate.
Brave
BBC used to be brave, now I think they are being controlled.
Adds
I would like to know how to remove adds, it is frustrating trying to read an interesting topic when this adds appear everywhere, thanks for your response
Canadians must now pay
Like our neighbors to the south, Canadians are now expected to subscribe to BBC News at a not insignificant expense. It comes two weeks after I was told by support staff that Canadians would always be able to access bbc app for free. With this egregious decision, Canadians have lost the last benefit of being a part of the Commonwealth. *Strangely, the app was free to access in Canada the weekend of July 11th but is back to paywall on Monday. What are they doing?
Tr
It’s a completely free news app. Nothing to complain.
Lousy
Just started posting new stories that if you click on them, you have to pay extra to read it. You can count me out just I deleted BBC news.
Easy to access and use
I love the BBC news app! I use this app and 2 other news apps for my daily dose of global and local news. This app is better than most. I also find the content curation pretty reasonable. Worth a try.
goodbye
I cannot afford to use this app, but i can afford to look elsewhere. Sad day, but oh well, there's nothing left to ruin, it's all gone.
Subscription
I have to subscribe
BBBC
Best BBC!
Subscription based app
I have used the BBC app to keep up to date with news around the world for a long time now, however now that everything is locked behind a paywall I unfortunately will be deleting the app.
Not as bad as the ABC in Australia
Most of your international news commentary appears researched and not based on personal prejudice. Not so sure about your domestic news coverage
It has changed for the worse
Paywall is erected with recent updates. Cannot read at least half the stories any longer without paying the BBC much more than any other service. Sad.
Bias
So Bias this left wing App!
Review:
BBC has always been my past, present & hopefully future reliable source for latest world news.
Ruined by obnoxious ads and login requirements
It’s even worse than before with forced login prompts. The app now bombards us with obnoxious ads that cannot be skipped or (critically) even muted. They override the no sound setting on your phone! This is unacceptable and I will be deleting the app and going back to using the web version with a robust ad blocker. I suggest you do the same. Shame on BBC!
Could be better
With the BBC decision to stop the use of BBC sounds outside of the UK we have this as a replacement. I find the delay in making The world at one, PM and news at 10 available as a podcast inconsistent and frustrating. I would have thought it would be in the BBC interest to have these and others made available immediately after Broadcast
Needs improvement
I paid for the subscription in order to access ad-free podcasts formerly available through BBC Sounds. The good news is that the subscription now removes ads from the podcasts. The bad news is that there are giant ads on podcast landing pages. Also, early access is not available for most of the podcasts offered in the BBC Premium channel in Apple Podcasts (for example, In Our Time, Friday Night Comedy, and Inside Science are all delayed by a week or longer in the app/website). Listeners are clearly an afterthought in the app and website navigation. Probably won't resubscribe as is. Edit to add: My workaround of accessing podcasts through the BBC website on my phone (Safari with Firefox Focus extension) no longer works to avoid the ads. The ads don't show, but neither does a play button. Not sure why there's such contempt for paying customers.
Was much better before
Cannot find radio stations, or podcasts easily any more or listen again to things I enjoyed. Also long podcasts are now scheduled as programs before other programs such as the news so have to leave BBC and return to it when the (e.g.) news program or other non-podcast Program is just starting (or has just started). This means you often miss the beginning of the news or a program you want to listen to. Then the podcasts are repeated again and again which makes me leave the BBC for another station instead of Listening to the same podcast again and again. The search for programs and podcasts often does not actually find any current podcasts Or programs. This procedure giving stars to BBC- I tried to give 2 stars (because of points above) - first time i tried it - you changed it to 5 stars! This time I did the same and it changed my response to 3 stars ! I like BBC - last year I would have given it 6 stars this year 2 or even 1 But I’m still a fan
World news is current and of factual quality.
Not so interested in personal human stories unless it is to do with globally important persons. Don’t need to read news on celebrities- here today, gone tomorrow. Thank you.
Typical of the BBC
Absolutely abhorrent app. It's truly pointless having it and there is no way in paying to read the news, no matter who you are, even as left wing and woke as the BBC is now,it will never happen. Save yourself some time, uninstall the app and find much better news resources
Keep going
Same old Remember Alister Cook Where is he?
pay per read
Let us watch (more) ads in exchange for articles. as oppose to full subscription
Ensh!tification
The app is fine, it’s just the content for international listeners, even for stuff we are allowed to access. Put a link to the Radio 4 schedule, let us favourite shows. The previous versions of the app were better, then it was much worse. Now it’s slightly better, but still worse overall.
BBC: World News & Stories price by country
A monthly subscription costs $8.99 in the United States and $9.21 in Canada. Below is the going rate for each plan in every country that sells it — the middle price of what the app charges there, in the country's own currency with the dollar equivalent beneath it.
| Country | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| Canada | CA$12.99$9.21 | CA$124.99$88.65 |
| United States | $8.99 | $89.99 |
BBC: World News & Stories FAQ
- Is BBC: World News & Stories free?
- Yes. The app and its basic features are free, in all 173 countries it sells in. Premium features are paid: they start from $8.99 (US), across 2 subscriptions.
- How much does BBC: World News & Stories cost per month?
- The Monthly Plan is $8.99 (US). The annual plan works out cheaper per month: $89.99 a year.
- Does BBC: World News & Stories have a free trial?
- No. None of its offers (US) come with a free trial.
- Where is BBC: World News & Stories cheapest?
- A monthly subscription costs $8.99 in the United States and CA$12.99 (≈$9.21) in Canada, its cheapest and dearest countries.
- What are the best alternatives to BBC: World News & Stories?
- CNN: Live & Breaking News (4.7 from 2,235,449 reviews, premium from $3.99), Washington Post (4.7 from 724,335 reviews, premium from $3.99) and The Guardian - US & World News (4.8 from 633,102 reviews, premium from $6.99).
BBC: World News & Stories download
Last updated 10 days ago.
BBC: World News & Stories sells in 173 countries. It was released 16 years and 6 months ago, on 1 Apr 2010. It holds a 4.5 rating from 227,062 reviews.
Supports 1 language: English.
How much does BBC: World News & Stories make?
Third-party estimates for the last 30 days, worldwide — not the store's own figures, which Apple publishes for nobody.
Revenue by plan
- Monthly 70%
- Annual 30%
Revenue by country
- United States 79%
- Canada 21%