Roku’s latest streaming bet is off to a good start. Its affordable subscription service, Hellohas now surpassed 1 million subscribers, according to data from the research firm Antenna. That’s a remarkable milestone for a platform that’s still fairly new, and suggests it’s impressing viewers who are tired of paying for yet another expensive subscription.
Launching in August 2025, Howdy is Roku’s first real push into ad-free paid streaming. At just $2.99 a month, Howdy is for people who want something extra to watch at a lower cost.
The service includes about 10,000 hours of content, a mix of movies and older TV shows, thanks to deals with studios like Lionsgate and Warner Bros. Discovery. This includes titles such as “The Blind Side”, “Mad Max: Fury Road” and “Weeds”.
Apart from being affordable, Roku has also made it easy to access. Howdy recently expanded into a standalone mobile app and launched on Amazon Prime Video, making it available to a wider audience. This broader reach likely helped her reach the 1 million mark fairly quickly.
According to Antenna, Roku’s Howdy garnered nearly 300,000 subscribers in its first month alone, and then continued to grow steadily, adding at least 100,000 more subscribers every month after that.
Additionally, among users who signed up for Howdy in August and September 2025, Antenna estimates that 51% were still subscribers six months later. This puts Howdy ahead of the average six-month retention rate for both premium SVOD services (47%) and niche SVOD platforms (38%). (“Special” platforms refer to ALLBLK, AMC+, Crunchyroll, and others.)
Howdy’s subscriber base remains a tiny fraction compared to giants like Netflix and Disney+, as well as free, ad-supported platforms like Tubi. However, Roku has been clear that Howdy isn’t meant to cater to streaming heavyweights, but instead serves as a cheap, ad-free option that complements other subscriptions.
That said, it’s still early days. If Antenna’s new data is any indication, this kind of simple, low-commitment offering could be what sticks with viewers, especially at a time when prices are going up everywhere.
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