Howdy is cheap – and that’s the best thing I can say about it

I’ve been a huge champion of Roku during my career. Though their ads can be a little annoying, I’ve appreciated their approach to no-frills streaming, and have been impressed by their diverse lineup of streaming sticks, TVs, and free extras like The Roku Channel.

First announced two weeks ago, Howdy seems like a natural extension of the Roku brand into the wide world of paid, ad-free streaming. And on paper, it sounds great. Thousands of hours of vintage content, streaming for $3 a month? It (perhaps knowingly) recalls the value proposition first made by Netflix back in the 2010s: Watch re-runs of all your favorite shows for a low monthly fee, all with no ads. Even Howdy’s own marketing seems to hint at this, with their website and press materials all proudly stating “Almost everything you want to watch. Always ad-free.”

I decided to test out this claim myself and, after paying the $3 entry fee, I have to say unfortunately I came away pretty lukewarm about Roku’s first entry into the world of paid streaming.

Price, availability, and specs

If you’ve got $3 and a Roku device Howdy can be yours

Howdy isn’t a hard app to find. In fact, if you have a Roku TV, or one of their plug-in streaming devices, you probably already have it installed as Roku helpfully ( or annoyingly, in my case) installed. If not, you can simply search for it from your home screen and it’ll pop right up. You can also access Howdy via any web browser at Howdy.tv or via Roku’s mobile app.

Currently, there is no way to access Howdy via non-Roku devices like Google TV or Apple TV, and if you’re looking to add it as a tile on a native smart TV OS like Tizen, you’re sadly going to be out of luck. It’s unknown if this will change in the future, as Roku’s website makes no mention of ever adding support beyond what is currently available.

Streaming looks to be in HD with Dolby Audio supported on some titles, but 4K options are seemingly absent, at least on the titles I was able to test out.

The monthly subscription fee is $3 and there are no free trial offers available.

What I liked about Howdy

It’s cheap

If there’s one thing about Howdy that I had to keep reminding myself over and over about while scrolling through its various content offerings, it was that if I could find at least one movie to watch, it would be worth the $3 subscription fee. Sure, a lot of films and shows on Howdy, including Reservoir Dogs, Dirty Dancing, and The Illusionist are all streaming for free on other platforms. But they’re not ad-free, which does make a difference, and $3 is less than a rental on basically any service. So, if there’s a movie you want to watch ad-free that’s on Howdy, you can think of the $3 subscription fee as a month-long rental. Just make sure your account isn’t set to auto-renew.

What I didn’t like about Howdy

A crappy UI and not a lot of content

Recency bias can cause folks to miss out on a lot of things. While I love watching new releases in theaters and on streaming, I don’t mind catching up on older titles I may have missed when they were new, and I certainly enjoy rewatching classic films from the 20th century, when some of the most iconic movies of all time were made.

However, I can’t say that I found much worthwhile in Howdy’s self-described “10,000 hour” catalog. Though there are some hidden gems to be found in series like Hell on Wheels and movies like Fruitvale Station, The Iron Giant, Stranger than Fiction and Fern Gully, these were placed alongside large swaths of forgettable series like Cheaters, Killers Caught on Camera, and something called Corner Gas.

My issues finding something to watch were further compounded by a crappy UI that makes content discovery basically impossible. Though Howdy’s home page looks like any other streaming service with rows of genres showcasing popular content, doing something as simple as searching for reality TV, kids movies, or award-winning films yields no results, and while Howdy might boast thousands of hours of content, unless you know the exact name of something you want to watch on the service, it is impossible to discover things to watch on the service.

I also didn’t like the fact that I couldn’t make a profile for different users. Though I was the only one using the service, if I had kids who were interested in checking out Beetlejuice: The Series or one of the other family-friendly offerings on this service, I don’t know that I would want them checking it out next to The First 48, Blade, or something more adult in nature. Support for profiles seems like a basic feature to have in 2025, and the fact that Howdy doesn’t have it is yet another major count against it.

This could improve in the future as Roku makes improvements to the service, but the way the app is now feels very underbaked and is the furthest thing from user-friendly.

Should you subscribe to Howdy?

Probably not unless you really really want to avoid a rental fee.

Look, a $3 per month ad-free streaming service is a unicorn in today’s streaming landscape of rising costs and increasing advertisements. But when that streaming service doesn’t have much content, provides a terrible user experience, and is locked in to the Roku ecosystem, it is still a hard sell, even at that rock-bottom price point. I have no proof, but the whole app feels like it was rushed to release before it was ready. If some time had been taken to find and license better content, refine the UI, and invest in features like 4K streaming and user profiles, perhaps Howdy could have been a major player in the streaming world (or at least an underdog). But as it stands now, Howdy is another forgettable service that risks immediately fading into obscurity if something isn’t done soon to make it worth its minimal entry fee.

If there is something you really want to watch ad-free, Howdy’s $3 subscription fee may be worth getting for a month, but sadly, at least in its current form, I don’t see Howdy becoming a regular part of anyone’s streaming service lineup.

notable shows

Weeds, Hell on Wheels, Kids in the Hall

notable movies

The Iron Giant, Elvis, Blade, Stranger Than Fiction

Subscription with ads

No

# of profiles

N/a