Recently, Netflix has started to seriously crack down on account sharing, blocking people outside of a single household from sharing an account.
With this move, a lot of people are seeking alternative streaming services.
One option is Peacock, a service started in 2020 by NBCUniversal. It’s an expansive service that offers over 40,000 hours of TV and movies.
The big question is: does Peacock allow account sharing?
In this article, we’ll cover the following:
- Whether you can share Peacock within your household
- Whether you can share Peacock outside your household
- How many devices can stream on Peacock at once
- Other limitations on sharing the app
- Alternative ways of sharing Peacock.
Can You Share Peacock Within Your Household?
Yes, you can. Luckily for family and roommates, Peacock is designed with household sharing in mind.
The app allows you to create up to six separate user profiles, which means each person can have different watchlists, history, and recommendations.
This is especially useful for kids since you can designate their account as a kids’ account. This lets you moderate their content and add parental controls where desired. It also keeps the recommended content kid-friendly.
All in all, there are no issues with sharing your account with people who live with you.
Can You Share Peacock Outside of Your Household?
This is where it gets a bit tricky.
Technically, Peacock’s terms of use say that sharing with people outside your household is against the rules. You are only allowed to share with people who live with you.
However, they don’t enforce this rule at the moment.
Right now, Peacock won’t block you from streaming from several locations at once, so long as all those locations are within their allowed countries.
This means that you can share your account with people outside your household.
You should just keep in mind that you’ll be violating Peacock’s user agreement and that they have the right to suspend your account for it if they ever decide to crack down on account sharing like Netflix.
This is probably unlikely. If they do ever choose to limit streaming in this way, they’ll probably just put in the same protections as Netflix. They likely won’t ban accounts breaking this rule. However, it’s always a possibility.
Currently, you can share your account by giving your login details to your friends or family. They’ll be able to log into your account on their device and even set up their own profile if they wish.
How Many Devices Can Stream on Peacock at Once?
It should be noted that you can only have three simultaneous streams on a single Peacock account.
This means that if people are already watching something on 3 different devices on your account and you try to fire up your favorite show, you won’t be able to.
You’ll be blocked from watching until someone else finishes, and this includes streams going on outside your household.
The biggest danger of sharing your login with too many people is that the more people on the account, the more streams are likely to be running at once.
You may find that you can’t watch your shows when you want because someone else is already hogging the streams.
Keep this in mind, and limit the number of people on one account.
One way to get around this stream limit is if you have Peacock Premium Plus, their most expensive plan.
On this plan, you’ll be able to download up to 25 titles at once onto your device. This allows you to watch them offline. Offline watching doesn’t take up one of the three streams in the limit as long as you disconnect from the internet.
This means, with some forward planning, you can have more than three people watching at once by downloading your content beforehand.
Other Family Sharing Limitations
Peacock is only available in select countries.
Previously, it was limited to the US only. However, it’s now expanding to the UK as well as Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy.
If you don’t live in one of these countries, Peacock is currently not available to you. The same applies to anyone you share your account with. This may change as they expand in the future, so keep an eye on their website if you’re interested.
You also won’t be able to use your Peacock account if you travel overseas to an unsupported country (unless you use a VPN).
Unlike some other streaming services, Peacock doesn’t limit devices to a certain number. This means you can download the app and use one account on as many devices as you want. However, the three-stream and six-profile limits will still apply.
Alternative Ways to Share Peacock
The classic way of sharing a streaming subscription is by a single person paying for the service, and then being paid back by the other users.
You may know that this method can be a bit tricky, especially when it comes time to nag the other users about paying you back their share. If you don’t want to deal with this, there are a few other options available to you:
PayPal
A handy way of managing shared payment for a streaming service is with a PayPal account.
You can use this account as the payment source for the service, meaning no single person’s bank account is linked to the streaming app.
Then, each member of the sharing group can put their share of the cost into the PayPal wallet each month.
This still requires some nagging to make sure the account is properly topped up. However, it means no individual is left on the hook for the cost if someone else doesn’t pay.
Together Price
Together Price is an online service that automates the more difficult parts of streaming service sharing.
You create an account on their website, then choose the service you want to share with others. Then, you can either create a share group or request to join someone else’s.
If you’re the admin of a shared group, you’re able to approve or deny anyone wanting to join.
Plus, the site has a handy user reviews section where you can review people you’ve shared with in the past, or see what others say about them. This helps you filter out poor sharing partners.
This is an extra handy method if you don’t have any real-life friends or family that want to share an account with you. Together Price finds people who want to share the same service, without you having to know them in person.
The site also handles the money side, meaning your payment information won’t be exposed to the people you’re sharing with.
Summary
So, what’s our verdict?
Technically: yes, you can share a Peacock account with people outside your household.
However, it’s also against the terms of service agreement you sign when you make an account on Peacock – meaning you’re breaking official rules. This means that, if they want to, Peacock can suspend your account.
However, right now, they don’t seem interested in doing this. Their three-stream limit does most of the work of keeping exploitative sharing at a minimum.
For this reason, you probably don’t need to worry about sharing your account this way. Peacock may restrict it in the future, but it’s unlikely that they’ll target your account in any way when they do.
We hope this article helped. Grab some popcorn and start binging.