Roku Pay is Roku’s built-in payment system that lets you subscribe to streaming apps, rent movies, buy pay-per-view events, and make other purchases directly from your Roku device using just your remote. Instead of entering credit card details into each individual app, you store a payment method once in your Roku account, and Roku Pay handles billing for everything you buy through the platform.
What You Can Buy With Roku Pay
Once you add a payment method to your Roku account, you can use Roku Pay for several types of transactions without leaving your couch. The main categories include:
- Streaming subscriptions: Sign up for apps like Paramount+, Starz, AMC+, and dozens of others. You can choose monthly or annual plans, and Roku Pay handles auto-renewals automatically.
- Premium Subscriptions on The Roku Channel: Add premium channels directly through The Roku Channel app rather than subscribing to each service’s standalone app.
- Movie rentals and purchases: Rent or buy individual titles through transactional video on demand (TVOD) apps.
- Pay-per-view and sporting events: Purchase one-time access to live events.
- Free trials: Many apps offer trial periods through Roku Pay, which then convert to paid subscriptions at full price unless you cancel before the trial ends.
The checkout process is designed to be fast. Because your payment method is already on file, completing a purchase typically takes just a few button presses on your Roku remote.
Accepted Payment Methods
Roku Pay supports credit cards, debit cards, PayPal, Apple Pay, and Cash App Pay. You can also use prepaid gift cards as long as the card’s payment network (Visa, Discover, etc.) is accepted in your region. You add or update your payment method through your Roku account at my.roku.com.
How Charges Appear on Your Statement
Roku Pay charges show up on your bank or credit card statement under a few different labels, which can be confusing if you don’t recognize them. The charge will appear as “Roku,” “Roku for ____,” or “The Roku Channel,” depending on what you subscribed to.
For example, a Paramount+ subscription billed through Roku shows up as “Roku for CBS Interactive.” An HBO Max subscription appears as “Roku for Warner Media Global Digital Services LLC.” Starz shows as “Roku for Starz.” If you subscribed to a premium channel through The Roku Channel app, the charge reads “The Roku Channel.”
You might also notice a $1.00 charge when you first add a payment method. This is a temporary authorization hold Roku uses to verify your card is valid. It’s not an actual charge and will be refunded to your account.
How to Manage or Cancel Subscriptions
Any subscription you signed up for through Roku Pay can be viewed and managed at my.roku.com/subscriptions. If a subscription appears on that page, Roku handles the billing and you can cancel it through Roku. If it doesn’t appear there, you subscribed directly through the streaming service and need to manage it with them instead.
To cancel from the Roku website, go to my.roku.com/subscriptions, find the subscription under “Active subscriptions,” select “Manage subscription,” and then choose “Turn off auto-renew.” You can also cancel directly from your Roku device: press the Home button, highlight the app, press the Star button on your remote, select “Manage subscription,” and turn off auto-renew from there.
A few things to keep in mind. Subscriptions auto-renew unless you actively cancel. After you turn off auto-renew, you keep access through the end of your current billing period, but you won’t get a partial refund for unused time. For free trials, you need to cancel before the trial period ends to avoid being charged for the first full billing cycle.
There are a few exceptions to the standard cancellation process. Disney+, Hulu, and Sling TV subscriptions must be canceled by contacting those services directly, even if Roku processes the charge. Services you subscribed to outside of Roku, such as Apple TV+, YouTube TV, Amazon Prime Video, or Spotify, are managed entirely through those providers.
Setting Up a Purchase PIN
If you share your Roku device with family members or want to prevent accidental purchases, you can require a PIN for every transaction. To set this up, sign in at my.roku.com and go to “PIN/Parental controls” under device settings. You’ll see options to require a PIN when subscribing, renting or buying content, or adding apps. You can choose to require it for all of those actions, only for purchases and subscriptions, or not at all. Anyone making a purchase on your Roku device will then need to enter the PIN before the transaction goes through.
Roku Pay vs. Subscribing Directly
When you subscribe to a service through Roku Pay, Roku acts as the billing intermediary. The practical difference is that you manage everything in one place (your Roku account) rather than juggling logins and billing pages across multiple streaming services. The subscription price is generally the same whether you sign up through Roku or directly through the service’s website.
The tradeoff is flexibility. If you cancel a Roku Pay subscription and want to resubscribe later through a different device or platform, you may need to create a new account with that service. And as noted above, a handful of services like Disney+ and Hulu route cancellation requests back to their own customer support even when Roku handles the billing, which can add a step to the process.