Like most internet companies, Spectrum increases your cable bill anywhere from 18–60% after the first year of service.

Your account at your fingertips. Sign in for the easiest way to view and pay your bill, manage your account, watch TV anywhere and more. Charter will offer free Spectrum broadband and Wi-Fi access for 60 days to households with K-12 and/or college students who do not already have a Spectrum broadband subscription and at any service level up to 100 Mbps. To enroll call 1-844-488-8395. Installation fees will be waived for new student households.

As a result, long-term Spectrum customers often pay upwards of $168 for internet and TV each month, unable to access the “introductory” pricing advertised for new customers.

This can be frustrating, especially when you’re also paying activation fees, WiFi fees and sports fees on top of it.

If you came here looking for an “existing customer deal,” the good news is that they do exist… they are just difficult to access.

Aside from discounts, there are several ways to lower your bill — including services like Billshark that will simply do it for you.

How to reduce your Spectrum bill

In this post, I'll show you how to reduce your Spectrum bill as an existing customer. This will require you to complete some or all of the following:

Don't skip number five, it's a solid last-ditch option if you have a spouse or roommate.

Want to see some success stories?Skip to the bottom to hear about reader experiences calling in to Spectrum to negotiate lower rates themselves.

Don't have a free afternoon to spend on the phone? Consider a bill reduction app or service. You just upload a bill and they take it from there, negotiating down the bill on your behalf in exchange for a percent of the savings.

As a former call center company worker myself, I know a thing or two about navigating Spectrum’s signup process and finding hidden deals. It takes time, but they do exist.

Before we start, be aware that this is a time-consuming process. It’s not guaranteed to work. In fact, about 3/4 of the mail I get about this post is people reporting that they couldn’t get a deal, even after several calls.

But if you’ve got some free time today and you want to save $120 or more over the next year — keep reading.

Here are some quick fixes to get you started:

Most methods of lowering your Spectrum bill will require at least one full afternoon of effort. Polling of our readers shows an average of 1.5 hours of wait time per call.

If you want results faster, you can Upload your bill to BillShark, and they'll negotiate a lower rate with Spectrum for you. (Estimated annual savings: $240+)

I've written up Step-by-step instructions below to make it simple.

Upload your bill

AT&T Fiber has been expanding and now offers speeds in the 100–1,000 Mbps range for equivalent or lower pricing than Spectrum. You can check your address for service and sign up completely online.

I've written up the details on AT&T vs Spectrum and how to switch providers without losing WiFi below. (Estimated annual savings: $300+).

View Plans and Pricing

Prerequisite: Understand How Spectrum Works

Before we start, you need some basic information about how Spectrum operates.

Like most cable companies, Spectrum uses a tactic called “introductory pricing” to sell internet service. This means that the price they advertise is not the actual cost of service — it’s a promotional rate for the first 12 months or so.

Because their sales agents are incentivized to sell as much as possible, this fact is often downplayed when customers sign up. In fact, if you ask a Spectrum agent what the final price is, their script requires them to say: “the standard rate at the time your promotion expires.”

No matter how you ask, they will never reveal the standard rate. And this is why so many customers are surprised when their bill suddenly jumps 40%.

The final pricing eventually shows up on bills, so I’ve been able to track down the current rates. The plans are regional, generally divided between their “upgrade” service areas (cities like Los Angeles and the standard Spectrum service area (mostly suburbs). The pricing is the same for each of the three tiers of service; the only difference is the internet speed. While this site is focused on California, Spectrum pricing is more or less the same nationally:

Plan Name	Speed Down/Up	Promo Price	Standard Rate
Spectrum Internet	100/10 Mbps	$49.99/mo	$69.99
Spectrum Internet Ultra	400/20 Mbps	$69.99/mo	$94.99
Spectrum Internet GIG	940/35 Mbps	$109.99/mo	$129.99

As you can see, you’re looking at anywhere from 10–80% price hikes, depending on the promotion you signed up on (these change a few times a year).

This is the primary reason that customer bills go up over time — although there are also instances where Spectrum’s “current rate” will go up for your subscription tier, or where extra fees or services might be added to your bill due to clerical errors or changing policies at Spectrum.

In order to get your bill back down, you’ll need to remove services, reduce equipment costs, call to negotiate the rate down, and/or re-qualify for a promotional rate. I’ll share some details specific to Spectrum in this article, but similar tactics work well with other cable companies like Cox and Xfinity.

You may also want to try and qualify for a subsidized plan, although those plans have much slower speeds and no TV options.

Let’s get started:

Call and Negotiate a Lower Rate

As covered above, Spectrum bills always go up after the first 12 months, and then creep up from there as regional price changes and fees get tacked on over time.

The solution: call Spectrum and negotiate a lower rate.

Customers who were with Time Warner Cable before Spectrum bought them out in 2016 will remember this as a tried-and-true method for reducing costs. Time Warner was very generous with promotional rates, to the point that practically every customer had a unique price for their account thanks to haggling with the TMC call center.

Spectrum has cleaned that up, by enforcing minimum prices and refusing to grant 'new customer' pricing for existing customers.

However, you can still reduce the rate by calling, and not just by shaving off TV packages. Here's a step-by-step walkthrough of how to lower your Spectrum bill:

Step 1: Prepare your account information

Before you call, have a bill handy so you can give them your account number and any other necessary information to identify the account.

Speaking of accounts, make sure you’ve paid your most recent bill. They won’t reduce the price for you if you don’t have an account in good standing.

Also ensure that you have information on competing offers for internet service in your neighborhood — especially if it’s a fiber service like AT&T Fiber, which Spectrum has more incentive to undercut on pricing. These can be helpful for convincing Spectrum that you mean business about canceling.

Before the call, collect:

Copy of most recent Spectrum bill (paid to date)
Case number for any past disputes you've had with Spectrum
Price and speed for competing internet/cable offers in your neighborhood.
The promo rate you signed up for (you'll be asking them to match this).

Step 2: Call Spectrum customer service at (855) 707-7328

When you call Spectrum, your goal is to:

Convince them that you’re going to cancel if they don’t give you a better rate.
Navigate their call center correctly so you find an agent who can grant price reductions.
Be polite to them personally, but express frustration about Spectrum the company.
Be exceedingly polite. If you worked in a call center, who would you give promos to: rude customers, or friendly ones? Nice guys finish first in this process.

Finding the right agent is easier said than done.

When you first call, you’l

Free Internet Installation Spectrum