Cut the cord in Canada: what you save and what replaces it

Typical monthly saving

$40–$95

Bell/Rogers/Telus/Vidéotron, approx./mo

$60–$135

Stable IPTV, per month

$7.50–$15

Live sports & some local channels

Rights-based

This page is about the number, not the setup. If you already know you want to cut cable and just need the order of operations — which app to install, when to actually call and cancel, how to avoid an early-termination fee — go straight to our full cord-cutting playbook. Here, we do the math: what a typical Bell, Rogers, Telus or Vidéotron TV bill actually costs, what Stable IPTV costs by comparison, a worked example for two kinds of household, and — honestly — which pieces, mainly live sports and a handful of local channels, depend on rights that don't always carry over cleanly.

What a cable or satellite TV bill actually costs in Canada

The advertised price on a TV package is rarely what lands on your statement. Once a set-top box rental, a regional sports surcharge and a channel pack or two are added, most households pay well above the headline rate. The ranges below are approximate, drawn from each operator's own public pricing pages before promotions, bundles and taxes — they're orientation, not a quote for your address, and current rates should always be confirmed on the operator's own site.

None of this is exact — a promo rate, a loyalty call or a bundle discount moves any of these numbers in either direction, and your own latest bill is the only real answer for your address. What the table does show is the shape of it: the big carriers cluster in roughly the same $40–$135 band once fees are added, and Stable IPTV sits well below that on any term.

What replaces each piece of a cable package

A TV bill is really four things bundled together, and each has its own honest replacement:

• Live channels & general entertainment — a broad live-channel IPTV subscription covers general-entertainment, network-style and international channel categories in one app, for the $7.50–$15/mo shown above.
• On-demand movies & shows — the library your cable box's on-demand menu used to hold. Netflix, Crave, Disney+ or Prime Video each run roughly $17–$22/mo and cover this cleanly; most households that cut cable keep one or two.
• Local news & community channels — often the easiest piece to keep for free: a basic antenna picks up your market's over-the-air signals in HD, and a broad IPTV line-up adds general-entertainment and news categories on top. A small number of hyper-local, municipal-access or community channels a cable package carries don't have a clean streaming equivalent, so check the specific one you rely on.
• Live sports — the most fragmented piece, and the one to check before you cancel. National feeds are one thing; your local team's regional blackout territory is another. See the honest caveat below before assuming any single service covers every game.

A worked example: two households, two outcomes

Averaging the midpoint of each of the four ranges above works out to about $90 a month — a reasonable stand-in for an ordinary Bell, Rogers, Telus or Vidéotron TV package with a box and no dedicated sports tier. Swap that for the annual Stable IPTV plan ($7.50/mo) plus one on-demand app (about $18/mo), and the new bill runs about $25.50/month. That's a saving near $64.50/month, or roughly $774 over a year, for a household that mostly watches general entertainment and doesn't pay separately for sports.

Add live sports and the picture shifts. A household that also keeps a regional sports tier often lands closer to $125/month for cable — near the upper end of the Bell and Rogers ranges above — and, because IPTV's national feeds don't guarantee every in-market game, may still want a dedicated sports streaming pass (roughly $20–$35/mo) on top of IPTV and an app. The new total lands near $45.50–$60.50/month, so the saving is still real — about $64.50–$79.50/month, or $774–$954 a year — but a smaller share of the original bill than in the first example, once you've paid for the sports coverage a cable package used to bundle in.

Run it with your own numbers before you commit: pull your last statement, separate the TV line items from internet, and compare against your household's actual habits rather than either example above.

Being honest about what doesn't move cleanly

Cutting cable saves real money for most households, but two pieces deserve a check before you cancel rather than after. First, live sports rights are split between broadcasters and change by season — a national channel line-up doesn't override a regional blackout, and some in-market games are only available through the service that holds the local rights. Our breakdown of watching the NHL without cable walks through how that works for hockey specifically. Second, a few hyper-local news, municipal-access and community channels that a cable package carries by regulation don't have a clean streaming or IPTV equivalent — confirm the specific local channel you rely on is actually available before you count on it.

Stable IPTV's own pricing doesn't change with sports or channel tiers: $15 for one month, $35 for three, $55 for six or $90 for twelve (about $7.50/month), billed in Canadian dollars with no contract and no auto-renewal. Because there's nothing to sign, you can also run it for just the months you actually want — see our no-contract IPTV explainer for how that works, or the full pricing breakdown and comparisons hub for a provider-by-provider view.

Make the switch

If the math above pencils out for your household, the order of operations — auditing your bill, lining up replacements, timing the cancellation and testing before you commit — lives in our full cord-cutting playbook. For what Stable IPTV covers more broadly, see Stable IPTV in Canada.