How to Stop Ads on YouTube, Step by Step with Photos

Advertisements are a way of life in the online world. There are many ways to block them on different platforms and services, however, including YouTube. If you’re tired of ads, we’ll show you how to stop them on YouTube. While it’s not as easy as you may think, there is one way to completely halt ads on the service, along with a few other tricks.

YouTube Premium Explained

The best and most foolproof way to stop ads that play before a YouTube video is to subscribe to YouTube Premium. It’s a subscription-based service the company launched in 2014 under a completely different name – Music Key.

The service was revamped and launched a year later as YouTube Red. At this time, the company began offering the service for all videos, not just music, but another rebranding was in the works. In 2018, YouTube split things up into YouTube Premium and YouTube Music.

They also raised the price of YouTube Premium to $11.99 per month. It’s the same price today, although there have been some tweaks over the years. The company tested a cheaper tier dubbed YouTube Lite for a brief time in European countries, and also experimented with 4K under the Premium banner.

The Perks of YouTube Premium

At $11.99, you may think trying to run an ad blocker is a better solution. Well, those don’t work for the types of ads embedded in YouTube videos. Subscribing to the service removes ads from all devices associated with your account, but provides some other great features as well.

Have you ever had a video cut out when your screen locks or you try to minimize a window? That won’t happen with YouTube Premium, which enables background play.

You can download videos from the service in seconds to watch on the go, and get access to another of the company’s services. When you subscribe to YouTube Premium, you get YouTube Music Premium for free.

How to Get YouTube Premium

If you’re interested in giving YouTube Premium a shot, first-time users can check out the service free for a month. After the free trial ends, you’ll be charged $11.99 per month unless you cancel, but you can save money with an annual plan.

12 months of YouTube Premium is $119 for an individual account, but a student discount drops the price to only $6.99 per month. Family plans are also available at $22.99 a month and provide an ad-free experience for up to 5 family members.

Step 1: Sign in to Your Google Account

Your YouTube account is connected to your Google account, so you’ll need to log in before you can subscribe to YouTube Premium. Once you’ve accessed your account, go to the official site at YouTube Premium.  

Step 2: Sign Up

From the main page, you’ll see a message with pricing and a button for the free trial, and you’ll need to click on that to proceed. If you don’t see the button, you’ll have the option to subscribe in its place.

Step 3: Complete Your Purchase

After you click Try it free, you’ll see a new page with the membership details. It will show when your billing will begin and renew automatically every month. When you’re ready to sign up, select Start 1-Month Trial.

Other Ways to Stop Ads on YouTube

One trick to stop some types of ads on YouTube is to use an ad-free or ad-blocking browser. It can’t stop ads in the videos themselves but can save you from pop-ups.

There are also programs like AdLock, which you can pick up for your mobile phone or use as a browser extension. This popular program can handle banner ads and pop-ups, along with preroll ads on the service.

It can also deal with ads on external sites that load YouTube videos or remove annotations from content. AdLock is free and well-received, but you’ll want to be careful when downloading unknown programs or extensions that block ads.

The Wrap-Up

As you can see, there is only one real way to stop ads completely on YouTube; although, we occasionally see loopholes that allow you to circumvent certain types of ads. Downloading videos from YouTube is another way to get around some ads, and something we can show you how to accomplish.