Britbox vs Acorn TV: Which British Streamer Is Better?

Short answer: pick Acorn TV if you mostly watch mysteries and crime dramas, and pick BritBox if you want the biggest overall library of British TV. Acorn TV is cheaper at $9.99/month or $99.99/year and leans hard into detective fiction from Britain, Ireland, Australia, and beyond — Poirot, Foyle's War, Murdoch Mysteries, Harry Wild. BritBox runs $10.99/month or $109.99/year and casts a wider net across drama, comedy, soaps, and documentaries — over 7,000 hours of British television, with a Premier tier that adds early access to new releases. Both are completely ad-free and both offer 7-day free trials, so the honest play is to trial whichever list below looks more like your watchlist. Here's the full breakdown.

Pricing Compared (2026)

• Acorn TV: $9.99/month, or $99.99/year (12 months for the price of 10). 7-day free trial. No ads on any plan.
• BritBox Standard: $10.99/month, or $109.99/year (also 12-for-10). 7-day free trial. No ads.
• BritBox Premier: $149.99/year, billed immediately (no trial). Everything in Standard plus early viewing of featured new releases and hundreds of extra documentaries from BBC Select.

On price alone Acorn wins by a dollar a month — $12 a year on monthly billing, $10 on annual. Close enough that the catalog, not the cost, should decide it.

What Acorn TV Does Best

Acorn TV is a mystery machine. The service is built around detective shows and crime dramas, and not just British ones — the catalog pulls from Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and continental Europe. Current highlights include Agatha Christie's Poirot and Marple, Foyle's War, Murdoch Mysteries (through season 19), Agatha Raisin, The Chelsea Detective, Bloodlands, and Acorn originals like Harry Wild, plus European crime imports and a growing bench of period and contemporary dramas. If your ideal evening is a body in a picturesque village and a detective with a complicated personal life, Acorn is your service. One quirk worth knowing before you sign up: Acorn has no TV activation code system — you sign in directly on each device, as we explain in our Acorn TV setup guide.

What BritBox Does Best

BritBox's pitch is breadth: 7,000+ hours of British television spanning mysteries, dramas, comedies, soaps, true crime, and documentaries. Where Acorn curates a lane, BritBox tries to be the home of British TV full stop — long-running detective series, classic sitcoms, panel shows, and a steady drip of new and returning exclusives. The Premier tier sweetens it for superfans with early access to featured new releases and the BBC Select documentary catalog (normally a separate $69.99/year service) folded in. If you want one subscription that covers the whole British television landscape rather than just the crime shelf, BritBox is the better fit — and setup is conventional, with a standard TV activation code flow we cover in our BritBox activation guide.

Device Support

Dead heat — both run everywhere that matters:

• Both: Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, iPhone/iPad, Android phones and tablets, Chromecast, smart TVs, and the web.
• BritBox additionally lists: Samsung, LG, and Vizio smart TVs, Android TV/Google TV, Xfinity, and Xumo devices by name.

Streams are reliable on both; when they do hiccup, we keep fix-it guides for each — BritBox not working and Acorn TV not working.

Which Should You Pick?

• Pick Acorn TV if: mysteries and crime dramas are 80% of what you watch, you like international variety (Irish, Australian, Nordic), and you want the lower price.
• Pick BritBox if: you want soaps, comedies, and documentaries alongside the mysteries, you care about new episodes of current British shows, or the Premier early-access perk appeals to you.
• Toss-up: classic whodunit fans genuinely can't lose — both services are stuffed with them.

Or Just Get Both (Strategically)

Running both costs $20.98/month — still less than one premium tier of most mainstream services. But the smarter move for most people is rotation: both services let you cancel anytime with no fee, so subscribe to one for a couple of months, binge, cancel, and switch. The annual plans punish this strategy, so stay monthly if you plan to rotate. Our subscription management guide covers how to track the rotation so you never pay for a service you aren't watching.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do BritBox or Acorn TV have ads?

No. Every plan on both services is ad-free — neither has introduced an ad-supported tier.

Do they have free trials?

Yes, 7 days each for new customers on standard plans (BritBox's Premier annual tier bills immediately, with no trial). Cancel before day seven and you pay nothing.

Is the content the same? Do they overlap?

There is some overlap in the classic-mystery back catalog, but originals and exclusives are separate — Acorn originals like Harry Wild stay on Acorn, and BritBox exclusives stay on BritBox.

Are they available outside the US?

Both operate in multiple countries (Acorn TV across the Americas and Europe; BritBox in several English-speaking markets), but catalogs and prices differ by region — the prices above are US.