YouTube Premium vs. Nebula: Which paid video platform is for you?
I can't responsibly compare YouTube and Nebula without giving some sort of disclosure that these video platforms aren't exactly as comparable as two mid-range noise-cancelling earbuds. Where the earbuds might be intended for exactly the same audience while having some performance differences, YouTube Premium and Nebula ultimately cater to different target audiences. There's overlap in the Venn Diagram, but not so much that they lend themselves to one-to-one comparisons all the way down.
All this to say, I'll be giving a lot of stipulations on my rulings below. With that in mind, let's begin the comparisons.
YouTube Premium vs. Nebula: Price
As I mentioned up top, YouTube Premium isn't exactly cheap — the individual monthly plan costs more than an Apple TV+ subscription or an ad-supported Disney+ and Hulu bundle. Granted, YouTube is a very different platform than those streaming services, and no payment is required to use YouTube. However, if it's one of your primary forms of entertainment, it's worth comparing to traditional streaming services.
YouTube Premium pricing tiers:
YouTube Premium (individual): $13.99 per month
YouTube Premium (individual, annual): $139.99 ($11.66 per month)
YouTube Premium Family: $22.99 per month (up to six people)
YouTube Premium Lite: $7.99 per month
YouTube Premium Student: $7.99 per month
As you'll notice from the pricing tiers, there are ways to bring down your monthly cost. If you can pay for a year upfront, that helps. Even better is grabbing a YouTube Family subscription — for most of my time as a Premium member, I've split mine with my boyfriend and a friend, bringing our monthly cost down to $7.66. Just make sure you sign up through YouTube directly to get the best cost. The Apple app store, for instance, raises the Premium Family subscription price to $29.99 per month.
If you're interested in just getting rid of ads and don't have anyone to split the cost with, YouTube Lite is a newer alternative for the brand. But for $8 a month, it's priced a little steep for the lack of additional features offered — and the fact that you'll still get served ads on select videos and YouTube Music.
Unlike YouTube, you do have to pay to use Nebula. The pricing breaks down as follows:
Nebula pricing tiers:
Nebula (monthly): $6 per month
Nebula (annual): $60 per year ($5 per month)
Nebula (lifetime): $300
While it's noticeably cheaper than YouTube (and comes with a lifetime price), the pricing does reflect the more limited features and content pool available. You also get one guest pass per month.
To assess the value throughout this comparison, I'll be operating with the assumption of monthly individual pricing for both services, unless otherwise stated.
Winner: Nebula
YouTube Premium vs. Nebula: Content
If YouTube is the modern-day Library of Alexandria, Nebula is the attached Library of Alexandria bookstore for people who really like video essays.
YouTube's entire video catalog is free and includes pretty much anything you can think of. So while Premium doesn't necessarily change what content is available, it allows you to change the way you watch content, whether that be skipping out on ads or playing a video in the background on mobile while your phone is locked or you're using other apps. For me, this comes in handy if I'm using YouTube as a Pomodoro timer for work, listening to a livestream or interview like a podcast, or listening to an actual podcast. Next to ad-blocking, this is my favorite feature of Premium.
Back in the days when Premium was called YouTube Red, the service also produced original content, but stopped doing so back in 2022. Alongside videos, a Premium membership also includes ad-free access to YouTube Music. While I haven't used it on my own time, clicking around it, I imagined myself being drawn to it if I wasn't already in so deep in the Spotify ecosystem (our sister site PC Mag, also owned by Ziff Davis, gives YouTube Music a four out of five rating in their review).
Nebula, on the other hand, has a much smaller content library — it takes just a few minutes to count the number of creators hosted on the site — but its goal isn't to be the video sharing platform for anyone and everyone. Instead, the service aims to feature highly produced, well-researched content from creators who have already made a name for themselves on YouTube (you might recognize names like Lindsay Ellis, Legal Eagle, Not Just Bikes, and Philosophy Tube, just to name a few). While that does mean you'll see a lot less content and have to pay to access any of it, what you will encounter feels vetted.
Trace Dominguez is a science content creator who's been posting on Nebula since day one in 2019 — but he also has two YouTube channels with about 664,000 and 87,400 subscribers respectively, and a podcast he co-hosts called That's Absurd Please Elaborate that he posts on YouTube and Nebula (in addition to the other places you'll find podcasts). In an email to me, he put it like this: "I find when I pick a video to watch on Nebula, I’ll stick with it and watch the whole thing. On YouTube, there’s no guarantee that videos will be good, that the audio won’t be grating, or the story won’t meander."
Generally, Nebula's content falls into the buckets of media criticism, news analysis, science explainers, history reflections, podcasts, and short films. If you're looking for streamers' VODs (videos on demand), casual day-in-my-life vlogs, beauty tutorials, or food content, you're better off sticking to YouTube.
That's not to say that Nebula is the definitively better service for the types of content it specializes in. For instance, after finishing the latest season of Andor, I discovered a ton of smaller video essay channels creating YouTube content around the show, while the same search for videos on Nebula yielded fewer results. That's not necessarily a knock against Nebula so much as a fact of its model — and a testament to how it's not a service that encourages algorithm chasing in the same way YouTube does. While this can be nice for curating your content pool, if you like casting the widest net possible and are frequently looking to discover new creators, you might prefer YouTube generally.
In many cases, creators on Nebula mirror their videos on YouTube as well. However, Nebula users get the advantage of generally having earlier access to those videos, as well as videos that are exclusively uploaded to Nebula. (On the site, you'll see those branded as Nebula First and Nebula Original videos, respectively). Like the early days of YouTube Red, Nebula also funds original scripted series (which also fall under the Nebula Originals tag). Most recently, they've announced a Broadway-studded cast for a new Twilight Zone-esque series.
Additionally, Nebula offers Masterclass-style classes taught by the creators on the platform. Though the selection is relatively small, it's diverse: You can watch courses on video editing, producing pop music, research practices, and dealing with anxiety. Like YouTube, Nebula also hosts podcasts, but takes a slightly different approach in the interface, which I'll get into below.
Winner: YouTube for generalized content, Nebula for video essays and educational content
YouTube Premium vs. Nebula: App and desktop interface
Now that we know what types of videos each platform offers, let's get into how they present that content.
As I mentioned above, YouTube Premium's features don't have any content behind the paywall, so the main benefit of the service is in how it changes your viewing experience. Here's the breakdown of what you get with YouTube Premium, feature-wise:
Ad-free videos and YouTube Music
Downloadable videos and music for offline viewing and listening
Background play while device is locked or while using other apps
Less exclusive to the Premium experience is simply that of using YouTube, which can be excellent on a good day and frustrating on a bad one. As it's not necessarily a Premium-specific issue, and I won't get into too much detail, but YouTube's discoverability is very much defined by what the algorithm chooses to present to you. And it can present some great stuff, but it can also overly represent its suggestions based on what you watched most recently. The YouTube search function is also notoriously bad, often showing limited results that quickly become unrelated to a search query entirely, making looking beyond the algorithm for new content challenging.
Ultimately, YouTube's algorithm feels like it's trying to hook you by serving videos with high view counts from popular channels. It's not a crime, but it does lead to some pretty abysmal search results and recommendations.
Nebula, on the other hand, takes a different approach. Take a look at its home page — notice anything?
Not a single video on Nebula displays a view count. Channels don't display subscriber counts, and videos themselves don't feature any comments or options to leave one. In that sense, the site feels truly content-oriented. Don't get me wrong — I like scrolling through comments as much as the next person, but I find that sometimes I can actually lose focus on what I'm watching. This gives YouTube a definitive edge when it comes to engaging in a more community-oriented experience, but it also feels like it communicates the different intentions of the sites.
YouTube seems intent on keeping users engaged no matter what, but Nebula offers its videos as the sole form of entertainment, giving more of an opportunity to get bored and actually log off. Again, one's not necessarily better than the other, but as someone who can struggle with self-control around screen time, this difference felt stark. (And not for nothing, I came across several videos on Nebula that had links to Reddit discussion posts about them.)
As for the app experience, I find YouTube's app easier to navigate, but I appreciate that Nebula's home page is more organized than the endless scroll of video suggestions you'll find on YouTube.
Beyond their layouts, each platform has smaller features for watching videos that ultimately keep the playing field relatively even. For instance, you can queue videos in the YouTube mobile app or desktop site.
You can't queue on Nebula beyond the "Watch Later" playlist, but Nebula allows you to use Chromecast when using Chrome on desktop.
Nebula's picture-in-picture mode (the small pop-out window) stays on your desktop whether you're in another tab or using apps separate from your internet browser entirely. On YouTube, the small window only follows you around the site.
Ultimately, neither's quality-of-life features in this area are better enough to push one over the edge. Generally, I prefer the organization of Nebula's interface, but I appreciate YouTube's setup when I want to read comments and search more generally for videos.
Winner: YouTube for community, Nebula for general ease
YouTube Premium vs. Nebula: Creator support
Chances are, if you've heard of Nebula, you're either a creator yourself or follow someone who's mentioned it in their videos.
Without getting too much into the lore, Nebula was founded by creators with the purpose of allowing creators a place to make what they wanted to, without feeling beholden to YouTube's algorithm. Because Nebula is owned by the creators on it and the company that founded it (Standard, a creator-run development agency), it gives creators a way to earn a living different from the model of YouTube's sponsorships and AdSense program.
According to Nebula's FAQ, Nebula profits are split 50/50 between creators and Standard, with the creator pool paid out by watch time and, as Dominguez informed me, listen time for podcasts.
So, how does that impact a creator's paycheck? Dominguez wrote that while AdSense could go a long way when videos resonated well with audiences on YouTube, "there is no certainty in that success." With Nebula, he found more stability: "I knew if I made a video every week, I could pull in enough to pay rent thanks to the ad partners Nebula was securing for me. That predictability was hugely important and uncommon in the creator economy. The fact that creators (like me) who are fairly small relative to the big players can pay bills with the revenue from Nebula is huge."
In other words, your subscription cost as an audience member isn't feeding a huge corporation like Google. Instead, it's being funneled back to giving creators a reliable paycheck, which, as Dominguez wrote, is all too uncommon in the creator economy.
Winner: Nebula
Our winner: YouTube Premium Family for the super fans, Nebula for the super super fans
Nebula isn't going to be for everyone. But if you're already a fan of several of the creators on Nebula, paying for it feels like grabbing the ultimate Patreon combo subscription. In that sense, it's a tremendously good value, and one that has the added bonus of putting consistent money in creators' pockets.
However, if you don't fall into that category, you might find yourself more drawn to a YouTube Premium subscription. It's honestly too expensive to earnestly recommend at the individual monthly price, but if you can grab a Family subscription with at least a couple of other people, it cuts costs way down (and saves you from a whole lot of ads).
For both services, you have to be at least verging on power user status to find that you're getting the bang for your buck. On the flip side, the most super of fans might enjoy subscribing to both services — or at least alternating between the two.