Crunchyroll, owned by Sony, is one of the largest anime subscription sites in the world, with over 100 million users. You may be wondering whether it’s free to use.
Crunchyroll does have a free version, with around 1,000 hours of ad-supported content available. However, as of 2022, all new releases require a premium subscription for viewing.
Read on to learn more about Crunchyroll’s free and premium plans.
Is Crunchyroll Free? Changes to Crunchyroll’s Free Tier
If you’ve used Crunchyroll in the past, you may recall that it used to have a free version supported by ads. The free plan would allow users to watch anime episodes a week after their release in Japan – while you had to wait, it didn’t cost any money, so most people were perfectly happy waiting.
The free version was supported by ads, and while watching ads in the middle of an anime series is a bit annoying, again, it was free, so people didn’t complain. They could always upgrade to the premium tier to remove ads and get access to episodes an hour or so after they premiered in Japan.
However, in 2022, Crunchryoll decided to change that and restrict access entirely so that only premium members who are paying for a subscription could watch new content. While previously released episodes remained available for viewing, any new releases were suddenly behind a paywall.
To make that transition a bit easier, Crunchyroll decided to offer a “sampler” of the first three episodes from select shows for free – but that only lasted for a transitional period.
That transitional period is long over.
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There is still a free tier – but it is much more restricted than before. No longer can you view new episodes – there is, however, more than 1,000 hours of content that you can view for free, as long as you don’t mind the ads.
So, does Crunchyroll have a free plan? Yes, but it is severely restricted and a far cry from what it used to be.
Therefore, if you don’t want to pay for anime, you might have to look for some alternatives.
With that said, let’s discuss the pricing options for Crunchyroll.
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Crunchyroll Premium Plans
Crunchyroll has three premium membership plans. Let’s go over them, one by one, and discuss the benefits and cost of each one – remember to check updated pricing here.
Crunchyroll Fan Membership
The cheapest premium membership tier is the “Fan” tier, which costs $7.99/month plus taxes.
Note that pricing does change by country, depending on the local currency, so it might be cheaper in some countries than in others – in fact, Crunchyroll reduced its pricing in over 100 countries to make it more affordable.
I will be focusing on US pricing in this article, though.
The Fan plan removes ads and gives you unrestricted access to the entire Crunchyroll library. You will get access to all new episodes just an hour after their release in Japan.
If you want to watch new series immediately, so you can chat about them in forums or with your friends, you’ll love it, because there’s no need to wait.
As a Fan, you will also get access to digital manga, available in English only.
There are some restrictions with this plan, though. For example, you can only stream on one device at a time.
Furthermore, offline viewing is not available, so you will need an active internet connection at all times when you want to watch.
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Crunchyroll Mega Fan Membership
This plan is just two dollars more expensive than the standard “Fan” membership, at $9.99/month plus taxes.
It includes everything the Fan plan does, in addition to perks such as the ability to stream on up to four devices at a time instead of just one. Therefore, it’s the perfect plan for households.
It also allows you to view offline. You can download content for later viewing, so you can watch when you don’t have an active internet connection.
Another benefit of this plan is that you get $15 off your first purchase of one hundred bucks or more in the Crunchyroll store every 3 months. Since it costs just an extra $2 a month, that actually pays off.
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The Crunchyroll store has a wide selection of anime figures, anime merchandise from popular series, DVDs, and a lot more! If you’re a hardcore anime and manga enthusiast, you’ll probably find plenty of stuff you like.
Finally, as a Mega Fan, you will get early access to special Crunchyroll Expo lotteries and events.
Crunchyroll Ultimate Fan Membership
The Ultimate Fan plan is the most expensive of all costing $14.99/month + taxes.
It allows you to stream on up to six devices at a time and includes everything the previous plans do. In addition, it includes extra perks, such as $25 off your first purchase of one hundred bucks or more in the Crunchyroll store (you can take advantage of this quarterly).
You will also get a swag bag once a year and access to a special-run figure.
As you can see, the main benefit of the Ultimate Fan membership compared to the Mega Fan membership is that you can stream on six devices instead of four. Otherwise, it costs 50% more for not much extra benefit, so I would only recommend it if you have the extra money to spend and don’t mind doing so.
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Does Crunchyroll Offer a Free Trial?
Yes, Crunchyroll offers a free 14-day trial on all premium plans.
Whether you want to try out the Fan, Mega Fan, or Ultimate Fan membership, you can sign up for a two-week trial until you are ready to commit.
Best Crunchyroll Alternatives
Now that Crunchyroll is no longer free, you may be wondering whether there are some alternatives where you can watch anime and manga without paying.
Fortunately, there are several – to wrap up this article, I will be listing a few of the best Crunchyroll alternatives that allow you to watch anime for free.
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1. Zoro.to
Zoro.to is a piracy site where you can watch anime for free – without even registering or creating an account. It’s also possible to download anime in HD video quality to watch for later.
The library is pretty big and includes series with subtitles in English as well as dubbed episodes in many languages. Zoro also updates its library pretty frequently, so there is always new content to watch whenever you get bored.
To start, simply enter the name of the series you want to watch in the search bar. Alternatively, you can browse the different categories, such as Movies, TV Series, and Top Airing.
There is a forum – Zoro Connect – where you can chat about anime with other anime fans. There is also a feature that allows you to watch anime together with friends – click on Watch2gether in the top menu and find one of the current or upcoming live streams to watch with your friends.
You will be able to share the live stream with your friend using one of the social sharing buttons on the left side. There is also a live chat section where you can chat with friends and others watching the live stream in real time – it makes watching anime much more fun.
Zoro is safe to use. There is an ad that helps support the site, but you won’t experience all those incessant annoying popups and redirects that you might on other pirating sites.
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2. 9Anime
Another great place to watch dubbed and subbed anime for free is 9Anime. It has a wide range of categories, such as action, romance, samurai, and drama, and it’s all free.
It provides links that allow you to watch anime for free or download it in high quality.
To find a series, simply enter it into the search bar or browse the available series on the homepage.
The site features a schedule that displays when certain episodes are scheduled to be released.
3. Nyaa Torrents
Nyaa Torrents is a massive index focused on torrenting East Asian media, mostly anime, manga, and the like.
The original Nyaa site faced many problems, including being banned or targeted by certain governments and internet providers and being the subject of DDoS attacks (one supposedly orchestrated by the Japanese government). However, while the original site was eventually taken down, there are forks that still work.
I would recommend using the green entries, as they have been uploaded by trusted users.
Torrenting is different from downloading. A site that allows you to download is storing its content on its server, but torrenting is peer-to-peer file sharing – you are downloading content from another internet user who has the file on their own computer via torrenting networks.
Because it is decentralized, it is hard for governments to crack down on it, although they often target torrenting index sites that include links you can use to torrent.
Wrapping It Up
While Crunchyroll offers a free plan, it is extremely limited, with just around 1,000 hours of content and no new releases.
Premium plans start at just $7.99/month, but if you want to watch new anime for free, I would recommend checking out sites such as Zoro.to, 9Anime, and NyaaTorrents.
