• Hulu

Hulu

Is this your business?
Write a Review

Overview

Hulu has a rating of 1.6 stars from 1,175 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally dissatisfied with their purchases. Reviewers complaining about Hulu most frequently mention customer service, credit card, and free trial problems. Hulu ranks 225th among Streaming Movies sites.

  • Service
    201
  • Value
    203
  • Shipping
    63
  • Returns
    71
  • Quality
    180
Positive reviews (last 12 months): 9.5%
Positive
2
Neutral
2
Negative
17
32
See all photos
How would you rate Hulu?
Top Positive Review

“Hulu”

Dee C.
3/29/24

Hulu is a fantastic streaming service with a diverse range of content, including current TV shows, classic movies, and original programming. The ability to watch new episodes of my favorite shows shortly after they air is a major plus. The ad-supported tier offers great value, although I wish there were fewer commercials during playback

Top Critical Review

“Worst Streaming Channel”

Joe S.
10/5/24

I've tried most of the movie sites and Hulu is by far the absolute worst. The website itself is slow and difficult to navigate. Their disabling of right-click makes it even worse. Movies stop at random places to load, ruining the continuity of the movie. And trying to skip ahead or back stops the movie outright for anywhere from several seconds to half a minute. You can't even pause a movie where you want because of the delay. Subtitles are out of sync with video on most movies. You have to pay to watch the movies, and then pay again if you want to watch them without ads. Even the free bootleg movie sites work better than Hulu. I tried their free trial so at least this poor experience did not cost me anything.

Reviews (1,175)

Rating

Timeframe

Other

Reviews that mention popular keywords

customer service (144) credit card (40) email address (7) bank account (13)
Thumbnail of user merryk11
California
2 reviews
1 helpful vote
  • Send Message
August 13th, 2023

This is a cut and paste of my review on Trustpilot.com

I have paid $91/mo for the last 2 mo or so and am getting $20/mo worth. Often (such as right now at 4:10 pm Pacific), Hulu crashes every five minutes - on both my tv's. I have tried everything recommended on Hulu's online help menu. I'm very disappointed. Looks like I'll be canceling pretty soon. To watch the news, I have to switch to YouTube, which NEVER crashes. Very pissed & I've had it! (And ps, the so-called "fast-forward" is only fast when compared with a tortoise).

After posting the about, Hulu crashed at least six times, 1 to 2 minutes apart. It is now 4:38 pm and I will be seeking a refund and will cancellation my service. I've also changed my "stars" from two to one. This is just absurd!

This is not a tv or internet problem - every other app on my tv works just dandy!

8/12/23 9:38 AM Pacific - Blankety blank Hulu lasted barely two minutes before crashing. No problem with YouTube. I am SOOOOO tired of the is BS!

Tip for consumers:
I used to have the entry-level Hulu (about $8/mo), but when I cancelled my DISH subscription I switched to HULU. Hulu does not have all stations (eg, can't watch Firing Line on PBS); the "fast forward" is really slow when compared with DISH; but, most importantly, HULU crashes ALL the time and I can't watch it for more than two minutes at a time quite often.

Products used:
Shipping is not applicable - Hulu is a streaming service I use on my smart tvs and on my cellphone.

Service
Value
Quality
Thumbnail of user noneo30
Alabama
1 review
3 helpful votes
  • Send Message
September 12th, 2018

Always buffering! In the middle of every movie a dozen times til I finally turn the $#*! off. If netflix can stream at the same cost without buffering more time than the movie plays then you shouldn't be a entertainment service. Waste of money. Thanks you Hulu $#*!s

Thumbnail of user danielr447
Oregon
1 review
1 helpful vote
  • Send Message
May 18th, 2019

So today I renewed my HULU live account. Last month wife and I cancelled a showtime addition after trying the free time and then a month after that realizing it doesnt have enough different movies to keep. So I went in changed in my manage account and removed. Well yesterday I noticed a charge of 61.98. Should be 50.99. I contacted them today. And to issue me credit get this. They have to cancel my entire account refund the 61.98 and then I have to rejoin immediately and they will charge me again 50.99. The customer service person was nice and even though i told her 3 months ago we decided to cancel live tv as it was really streaming badly. We we were issued a credit immediately for that without renewing our account. I pointed this out to her and she said this was company policy. So I would be charged twice a credit to my card but I wont see that for 7 days. I told her you really want to have me burn your company down on review sites over 10.99 she said that was company policy.

Thumbnail of user kevins119
New Hampshire
1 review
7 helpful votes
  • Send Message
October 27th, 2015

Of all the pay to watch services hulu is the worst. Why would you pay for a service that then makes you watch commercial after commercial. Literally every few minutes you have to watch the same commercials over and over. Do yourself a favor stick with Netflix or Amazon Prime where you don't have to deal with stuff like that.

Thumbnail of user torstenw7
Florida
1 review
0 helpful votes
  • Send Message
February 9th, 2022

Endless Commercials and too expensive for what you get. Every 7 minutes you are hammered with the same commercial over and over. Not only that but its mostly Pharma, and or some B**ls*** insurance stuff.

The movies are rather old, and so are the shows. If you want the newer stuff you need to up-scale your monthly fee to Premium.
On the PC the commercials have a work around that is quite nice (no commercials at all), but on Firesticks, and or Smart TVs sorry folks you are getting hammered.

Tip for consumers:
move to something better, its too expensive to make it worth your while

Products used:
Hulu for $16 a month

Service
Value
Shipping
Returns
Quality
Thumbnail of user nancyn117
Florida
2 reviews
3 helpful votes
  • Send Message
January 28th, 2019

Ok, is anyone else having a problem with recording on Hulu Live? It provides 50 hours of recording in their monthly fee. I have used it, sometimes to about 25 of the 50 hours; however, when I catch it up, and there is actually nothing recorded, it says I have fewer hours remaining. It started out with deleting 2 hours of recording time; now it is up to 6 hours of recording time that is now unavailable. I phoned, and they said they have recognized this problem and are working on it. But this has gone one now for over three months; you would think they would have solved this problem by now. Is anyone else out there experiencing this problem?

Thumbnail of user brendab598
Colorado
4 reviews
3 helpful votes
  • Send Message
December 22nd, 2021

I been with Hulu for years. They have had multiple price increases. I paid for the no ad plan and they have ads so that is one example of false advertising. Their latest dirty blow was to cancel the day-after-streaming option in lieu of live TV. Turned the TV on today to watch the season finale of the Bachelorette and it wasn't available. I called customer service and was told that to watch the Bachelorette now, I have to buy live TV which is $70 a month minimum. I think it's extremely dirty and they did this right before the season finale aired. I am done with Hulu. Whatever you do, don't buy a plan with them. They are dishonest. They have very dirty business practices. Run… Run… Run as far and as fast as you can. Find a reputable service.

Service
Value
Thumbnail of user marsham21
Marsha M.
Oklahoma
2 reviews
5 helpful votes
  • Send Message
August 6th, 2016

I was recently going over my bank account and noted that Hulu was debiting my account twice every month. I called Hulu customer service and was advised they indeed were debiting double monthly. I asked that he check my account for further months and learned the double debits had been going on for 10 months. They politely said the system sometimes creates two accounts and offered to close one account. No mention of refunding the money until I asked. He said he could only refund three months. Then I asked who can refund the balance. He said his manager can refund another three months but in order to get the remaining 4 months I will have to contact my bank. The programming is great and the customer service is professional but inadequate in satisfying this situation,. Be aware of your bank debits by Hulu!!!!!

Thumbnail of user timb179
Nebraska
1 review
8 helpful votes
  • Send Message
September 25th, 2017

Hulu on Roku is totally unusable since this update. You trashed my watchlist, made it impossible to find anything and will not inform me of new episodes. Also, the whole color changing theme is just sooo annoying. I thought the Netflix scrolling music change was bad but this blows that out of the water.
How many subscribers have you lost so far? Please fix this.

Thumbnail of user whitneyw37
California
1 review
2 helpful votes
  • Send Message
December 6th, 2017

Suddenly this morning, Hulu crashes on my iPad and iPhone. I do a "live chat" with tech support and, after trying all kinds of things that don't work, they think "maybe" the problem is my IOS (9. 3. 5). I call on the phone and am told they no longer support any IOS older than IOS 10 and suggest I talk to Apple. I think this is the tail wagging the dog.

My suggestions:
- give advance warning IN EVERY ACCOUNT when you are going to discontinue serving an operating system.
- Hulu was already serving my operating system, continue to do so. This equipment is not that old.
- remember you are a SERVICE industry and not the only game in town. Netflix, Amazon, and all the network apps still work fine on my devices.

I cancelled my account. I can watch these same shows on the apps provided FREE by each network. It's a bit less convenient, but it's FREE.

Thumbnail of user farahf15
Pennsylvania
1 review
0 helpful votes
  • Send Message
January 23rd, 2019

Surprise! Hulu has begun to jump on the bandwagon of price hikes. Signed up for Hulu + Live TV package for $39.99/month in July 2018 and just got an email saying they'll be raising it to $44.99/month. Absolutely absurd! It hasn't even been a year that I'm with them and they're already raising the rates. The entire point of switching to Hulu was to save $ but they seem to be going in the same direction as the larger companies. I called and spoke to a "supervisor" named Kenya whom sounded like she was 18 years old and had no no customer service skills at all. She basically said the reason for the price change was because they've added a lot of channels over the years. Ummm, all those channels were already there when I signed up. She couldn't help me and basically said it's my choice if I want to switch. Hulu is becoming a scam! Searching around for alternative options right away.

Thumbnail of user jacks15
Florida
2 reviews
6 helpful votes
  • Send Message
March 31st, 2017

Signed up for 2 months. Ist month the endless repetitve commercials with the buffering delays were intolerable. Planned on modem change for 2nd month and same aggravating commercials with associated delays appeared even worse. Cannot enjoy a show being interrupted every 10 minutes with 3 ads of 30 sec each that take 1 minute to load, crashing occasionally causing main show to reload to beginning and simply make the experience annoying. Tried "Showtime" which was similarly full of delays, buffering, crashing and was just not worth the premium extra cost. Can't beat Netflix for quality although selection sucks at times.

Thumbnail of user saraha128
Florida
2 reviews
4 helpful votes
  • Send Message
March 1st, 2017

I have 100mbs fiber optic internet and the wireless modem and router is set up within 20 feet of the main tv. Every few minutes, no kidding, the streaming fails or voice stops playing in all 4 smart tvs that are brand new across the house? Impossible that my internet or hardware has anything to do with it because hardware is brand new and it's fiber optics with steady connections that speed test confirms. How do I know for a fact that Hulu sucks? Because Xbox live never fails to stream online and neither does Netflix. The outages and server failures are all verified through Hulu website showing constant outages. I'll stick to anything but Hulu, great concept but horrible execution. Keep your rates at 4.99 with no commercials and I'll reconsider. Ain't nobody got time for this.

Thumbnail of user lj152
Indiana
2 reviews
1 helpful vote
  • Send Message
April 24th, 2019

WORTHLESS! Purchased Hulu thru a free trail, never have been able to login in system keep stating your email/password is incorrect. Reset password twice still no luck called *******650 young lady couldn't help me at all. Kept saying your email address is wrong, I been having the same email address for 15 yrs. What a waste but you keep deducting from my bank account. So I cancelled service, no one there in person to troubleshoot.

Thumbnail of user carls503
Idaho
2 reviews
20 helpful votes
  • Send Message
December 1st, 2020

First time cut cable to try Hulu live (over past 30 days) and will immed return to cable. No question. Only pro with Hulu is cost savings (approx $150/mos for basic cable pkg). Hulu cons: picture quality think cheesy motel 25 years ago; service interruptions every few days ("sorry, working to restore," svc can be out minutes if not hrs). Miz substitute for pic quality/service dependability of cable!

Thumbnail of user lucp13
California
1 review
12 helpful votes
  • Send Message
July 22nd, 2017

Wow. Who designed the new UI, and who was it designed FOR? You can only see one show at a time, selection bar is OVER your selection, there's a loud obnozious tone at startup, there's no longer an option to "watch from beginning" (at least not anything we've found) and a host of other annoying, pointless, pretty much counter-productive changes.

Good grief, we are ready to cancel our subscription because of the UI! How messed up is that?! Scene from Hulu Development: "duuuuuuh, we got 5 reviews from people who don't want to see a whole bunch of categories at a time because they have cataracts. Let's make it huge (but with tiny text the user can't read!) and only show one program at a time, but also make it a convoluted maze to get to functions that were easily accessible before!". Don't drink and develop, kids.

Thumbnail of user sherryannl
Massachusetts
1 review
0 helpful votes
  • Send Message
April 17th, 2022

I've tried EVERTYTHING to adjust the volume of commercial…just commercials. They are blaring. Did a little research on this subject. It's a deceitful advertising tactic. In which Hulu has found a loophole…2010 a law was passed to prohibit this. I am trialing it. So far, thumbs down.

Products used:
Tv streaming

Service
Value
Quality
Thumbnail of user pamt144
Colorado
1 review
0 helpful votes
  • Send Message
November 12th, 2020

For a paid service, there are WAY too many commercials. Every 5 minutes there are 60 to 90 seconds of commercials. I can't even keep up with the story with so many interruptions. I am going to write this review on every review site I can find.

Thumbnail of user junkj
Arizona
1 review
8 helpful votes
  • Send Message
July 8th, 2017

HULU's new navigation is the worst ever. I dread having to find any new stuff, it's a chore. Everyone I know hates it. Netflix, Showtime and even HBO know how to present their content in a friendly way. Hulu just blew it. Hulu's new navigation just sucks.

Thumbnail of user ceciliad24
Arizona
3 reviews
7 helpful votes
  • Send Message
July 27th, 2019

They have a good selection, much better than Netflix, but their ads are several minutes long and very repetitive and annoying. Also, if you sit through the ads, you cannot go back and forward without the ads playing! Such a waste of time and waste of money.

Thumbnail of user charolettew
Florida
1 review
9 helpful votes
  • Send Message
June 3rd, 2017

Does the Hulu company, have a research team, because They failed with this so called update. You can not look up stuff easily or just look at your stuff with out going threw a mess to find the show you want or find the episode. No this is Awful, atleast go back to the old version. And add a like button and star review on the shows and movies, so your customers can give feed back on what they like.

Thumbnail of user walterb376
Massachusetts
2 reviews
0 helpful votes
  • Send Message
March 28th, 2021

At first Hulu was a very good value. Then the price started to climb, and customer service went out the window. I have the no ads option. I read how it worked then watched some shows and could understand why i was still seeing ads. I was then told there were some exceptions. Why was this not stated in their ad? It didn't matter the shows i was watching Anthony Bourdain (travel channel), Cold cases (A&E) most of the time get commercials. These shows are not live when we get commercials. Calling customer service is impossible as there is always 45 minutes or more wait time to talk with someone, no matter when you call. When you do get through to someone, they are not helpful. Best thing to do is pull the plug and find someone else.

Service
Value
Quality
Thumbnail of user bobc327
Wisconsin
1 review
1 helpful vote
  • Send Message
February 18th, 2019

I was so disappointed with Hulu. I own a cabin an hour from my house. I purchased the largest package that Hulu sells thinking i could watch Hulu live in my cabin or home and get rid of my huge att U-verse package at my house. Surprise I can only watch Hulu live from one location. I can buy a chrome cast and can stream either att u-verse or Hulu. The difference is I have to buy my home phone and internet so I get more from att with a bundle. Hulu I used to love pandora, Sirius and Spotify killed it. What new company is going to kill the fat pigs that are trying to eat this new market. Hulu blamed the federal government so I wrote to my senator to get the truth. I cannot imagine anyone cares what is thrown into a streaming service, it seems like a lame excuse to get the consumer to multiple buy the same crap.

Thumbnail of user stacym723
Texas
1 review
0 helpful votes
  • Send Message
October 18th, 2022

Well finally the retry charge button is there instead of having to go thru whole process. #2. Hulu gives a couple days heads up before they cut off And #3 they finally linked w my phone in sayingmy password had been coprimised. I would love for Apple to be more like Hulu! Give me notice before they charge me and what the hell its for. This tells me people are freakin poor. As well

Thumbnail of user alysonp1
Pennsylvania
2 reviews
7 helpful votes
  • Send Message
November 10th, 2015

So since I didn't buy the add free hulu it's absolutely horrible freezes on movies and I can't watch any episodes at all because when a marine add comes on it freezes the last second before starting family guy or any show for that matter absolutely ridiculous I want my money back

Sitejabber for Business

Gain trust and grow your business with customer reviews.

About the business

Watch TV shows and movies online. Stream TV episodes of South Park, Empire, SNL, Modern Family and popular movies on your favorite devices. Start your free trial now. No commitments.

How do I know I can trust these reviews about Hulu?

  • Sitejabber’s mission is to increase online transparency for buyers and businesses
  • Sitejabber has helped over 200M buyers make better purchasing decisions online
  • Suspicious reviews are flagged by our algorithms, moderators, and community members
Have a question about Hulu?

Is this your business?

Claim your listing for free to respond to reviews, update your profile and manage your listing.

Claim Your Business