Sling TV may not be a household name like other providers in the live TV streaming market, but it’s a reliable and often more affordable alternative to bigger players in the space. While it might not the be simplest of streaming services, it is an option worth looking into for anyone trying to balance their budget, or for viewers who don’t feel they need every channel out there. It’s built on two distinct plans — Sling Orange and Sling Blue. You can get one of the plans for a highly competitive rate, or both for a little bit more. (Which is what Sling really encourages you to do.) While there is some overlap between the two, neither of them has the full catalog that its competitors like YouTube TV can offer.

To augment their smaller catalog, it has its own slate of optional add-ons, which Sling TV calls Extras. Each one costs a few dollars more each month, which can quickly add up to the same price range of services like YouTube TV, Hulu Plus Live TV, and Fubo, it’s all about your ability to choose to have those add-ons — or not.

So, let’s take a deeper look at the available Sling TV channels, including what you’ll pay and what you’ll have to pay on top of that.

Sling is one of the less expensive services available, but that’s because its default plans have fewer channels than the others. As of Spring 2025, Sling Orange is $46 per month and Sling Blue costs $51. (You’ll get a discount on your first month.)

Or if you get Sling Orange and Sling Blue, it’ll cost $66 a month. (There’s a first-month discount there, too.) So basically, Sling is betting that you’ll look at that and opt just to go ahead and get both.

Besides channels, another major difference between the tracks is how many streams you can have going at one time. Sling Orange allows for a single stream. Sling Blue allows for three. But even if you get both tracks of service, Sling Orange channels are still limited to a single device. (Hey, we told you upfront this was going to get a little complicated.)

Sling offers a wide variety of premium add-ons to supplement your subscription regardless of which base plan you have, or to subscribe to as a stand-alone service. These range widely in price from as little as $3 for niche add-ons like Dox, a collection of documentaries, to $30 for MLB.tv.

This is separate from “Sling Extras” which can add additional channels in specific categories but vary in compatibility by base plan.

Sling Orange is probably the plan you’ll want to get if you only get one plan, if for no other reason than it’s the one that has more sports channels. If that’s of no interest to you, though, you’ll want to keep reading — or just plan on getting both tracks.

Channels exclusive to Sling Orange: Disney Channel, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3, ESPN4k, FreeForm, and Motor Trend.

Channels exclusive to Sling Blue: Bravo, Discovery Channel, E!, FS1, FX, Fox News, HLN, MSNBC, NFL Network, National Geographic, Syfy, TLC, USA, and TruTV.

The following channels are available on either track: A&E, AMC, AXS TV, BBC America, BET, Bloomberg, Charge!, CNN, Cartoon Network, Comedy Central, Comet, Food Network, Fuse, HGTV, History Channel, IFC, Investigation Discovery, Lifetime, Local Now, MGM+ Drive-In, Nick Jr., QVC, Sling scapes, Sling scapes2, TBS, TNT, Travel Channel, and Vice.

If you read the above and thought, “That’s not a whole lot of channels,” well, you’re right. It’s not. But you can augment Sling Orange and Sling Blue with a number of Sling Extras. Prices and channels are subject to change, but we’ll do our best to keep things current:

There are a couple of other bundles available. Total TV Deal gets you all seven Extras on a given track for $21 a month. And 4 Extras Deal gets you Kids, News, Comedy, and Lifestyle for $13 per month.

Every Sling subscription comes with 50 hours of free recording, also known as DVR. (DVR stands for digital video record — a throwback to the time when we all had cable boxes with hard drives inside to record shows.

You can get another 150 hours of cloud-based storage for an extra $5 a month with a DVR Plus subscription.

In addition to all those optional Extras, Sling TV has a number of premium subscriptions available. Here’s the full list as of early 2024, with monthly pricing.