The Real Cost of Cutting Cable in Canada

The monthly saving is not the whole number. Internet repricing, hardware, streaming subscriptions and the things cable was quietly bundling — worked through honestly.

The saving from dropping cable is real, and it is smaller than the arithmetic most people do. Here is the full number, including the part that shows up on your internet bill.

Buying · 2026-09-09 · 6 min read

Start with what you are actually paying

Not the advertised price — the line on your bill, including equipment rental, and including what happens when the promotional rate ends. Canadian television packages commonly sit between $60 and $130 a month at full price, and box rental adds $10 to $20 per television on top.

Get the twelve-month number rather than this month's number. The gap between them is often the largest single item in this whole calculation.

The bundle unwind

This is the cost most people miss entirely. If your television is bundled with internet or mobile, removing it frequently reprices what remains. A standalone internet plan can be $15 to $30 more than the bundled one, which eats a substantial share of the saving before you have subscribed to anything.

Call and ask for the standalone price of the services you intend to keep, in writing, before you cancel anything. Providers will give it to you, and it changes the arithmetic often enough to be worth the ten minutes.

One-time and ongoing costs on the other side

Cutting cable is not free either, and an honest comparison includes both sides of the ledger.

  • A streaming device per television, if you do not already have one — roughly $50 to $80 each, once.
  • Possibly an internet upgrade, if you are on a plan that was adequate only because television came down a separate wire.
  • An Ethernet adapter, powerline kit or mesh node if the television is far from the router — $20 to $150, once.
  • The IPTV subscription itself, and any streaming services you add to cover what you lose.

The stacking trap

The saving evaporates fastest when households replace one bundle with four subscriptions. Three or four mainstream streaming services plus an IPTV subscription can quietly land within range of the cable bill you left, without the single bill that made it visible.

Decide up front what the total is allowed to be, and review it after three months. Subscription creep is the main reason people conclude cutting cable did not save them anything.

What the honest saving looks like

For a household paying a full-price cable package with two boxes and no deep bundle, the saving is substantial and durable. For a household deep in a bundle, on a promotional rate that has not expired, with a marginal connection and a habit of adding subscriptions, it can be close to nothing.

Work out which one you are before you cancel. The answer is specific to your bill, and it is knowable in an afternoon.

Questions

Will my internet bill really go up?

Frequently, yes, if television was part of a bundle. Ask your provider for the standalone price of the services you plan to keep before cancelling — after is too late to renegotiate from a position of strength.

Should I cancel cable immediately?

No. Run both for one billing cycle. It costs one month and it removes all the guesswork about whether the replacement works on your connection and for your household.