The Best Free Trial Offers for Your Two-Week Quarantine
Quarantine is a great time to catch up on your favorite movies, music, and series. You can even learn a new skill! Plus, keeping yourself distracted means you won’t lose your mind worrying about whether or when you will become sick.
Grab your calendar and get ready to plan some quarantainment — home-based entertainment using digital devices. Many people tend shy away from free trials because they forget to cancel the service before they’re charged. But if you’re stuck at home, literally counting the days, you’re in a perfect position to take advantage of these online offers.
This list is designed for readers who live in the United States. Availability of programs and trial offers varies by region.
TV & Movie Streaming Services
Netflix
The granddaddy of streaming services! Netflix has a one-month free trial for new subscribers. Otherwise, the basic plan is $8.99 per month.
Personal Picks: Derry Girls, 6 Underground, I Am Not Okay With This
Hulu
Hulu has a one-month free trial for all new subscribers and some eligible returning ones. You can even choose the no-ad option for your free month. The ad-free subscription will otherwise cost $11.99 a month, or you can get the ad-filled version for $5.99 per month.
Personal Picks: Killing Eve, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, anything with Gordon Ramsay
Disney+
One of the newer streaming services with a short free trial: only one week, then $6.99 per month. But you’ll get access to all your favorite Disney movies, plus the Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, and National Geographic content libraries. If you bundle Hulu, Disney+, and ESPN+, you’ll pay $12.99 per month for that package.
Personal Picks: The Mandalorian, Xenon: Girl of the 21st Century, Sister Act
Anti-Recommendation: Inhumans. It is incredibly bad. You might want to sign up for the Disney+ trial just to see how mind-blowingly bad this show is.
HBO NOW
HBO NOW gives you one week of HBO free. Otherwise it’s $14.99 a month — one of the steepest solo channels on the market.
Personal Picks: Westworld, The New Pope, Us
Boomerang
Boomerang has a 7-day free trial of an enormous cartoon library. It’s otherwise $4.99 per month. You’ll find old classics like Tom and Jerry, Popeye, and The Smurfs. Highly recommended for kids on quarantine who have yet to Meet the Jetsons.
Multi-Services
Amazon Prime
Sign up for a free month of Amazon Prime and you’ll get access to Amazon Prime Video, Music, and Reading, plus all these benefits. It’s otherwise $119 a year for a typical membership or $12.99 per month when paid monthly. Students with a valid .edu email account pay less.
The Prime Video library is as robust as any of the video streaming services mentioned above.
Personal Picks: The Expanse, Good Omens, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel
Prime Music is, you know, music. While it doesn’t have every song, you can still find most new releases and older hits. Honestly, it’s not a great use of time to build playlists that will disappear from your devices after your free trial is over.
The Prime Reading trial is a great option for the casual reader. You’ll find popular novels along with magazines, Instant Reads, and genre favorites like mystery, romance, and comic books. Think of it as a replacement for the average public library: it’s got lots of stuff, but might not have the exact thing you want to read.
Crunchyroll
Crunchyroll will give you 14 days of unlimited access to anime and drama shows, plus manga. The regular cost is $7.99 per month. If you love anime, you’ve probably already tried this site. If you’ve wondered what the big deal is about anime, quarantine is a great time to try something new.
Reading
Kindle Unlimited
Kindle Unlimited gives you a free two-month trial if you’ve got an active Prime subscription. After the trial, it’s $9.99 a month. Like Prime Reading, you can read through the Kindle device, website, or app on your phone. You’ll also get unlimited audiobooks as long as they’re part of the Kindle Unlimited library. This is a good option for people who have been interested in ebooks but haven’t really tried them yet.
Audible
Audible is the audiobooks service from Amazon. Unlike the other reading trials, Audible isn’t unlimited. Your free month trial gives you 2 audibooks and 2 Audible Original shorts. However, you do get to keep the audiobooks after your trial is over.
Personal Picks: Memoirs read by the author, like My Own Devices by rapper Dessa, You’re Never Weird on the Internet by Felicia Day, anything by Augusten Burroughs
Music
Spotify
Spotify Premium has a one-month free trial that renews at $9.99 per month. Students with a valid .edu email account pay less. You can also just stick with the free version of Spotify, which automatically places ads between songs and limits your playlist options to shuffle mode.
Tidal
Tidal offers a free monthlong trial of its high-quality music streaming that promises greater audio fidelity than other services. It’s also got some podcasts and videos. The regular cost is $19.99 per month. It’s a bit of a novelty to try it out, but unless you’re a huge music aficionado, this probably won’t be your top choice for quarantainment.
Learning
The Great Courses Plus
The Great Courses Plus will give you two weeks free to try their streaming service with educational content. (Not to be confused with The Great Courses regular site, which has no free trial and charges per video.) If you want your quarantine to be more educational than recreational, you can watch videos about Life Before Agriculture, Ancient Astronomy, or The Pirate Wars of 1718. For an uncomfortably meta experience, try learning about the Black Death and historical plagues.
Learn@Forbes
The Learn division of Forbes offers a 14-day free trial of its career development courses. Read over the course listings before signing up. The four-figure certification courses are not included in the trial, but you can still find interesting courses on cool topics like Introduction to Non-Profit Management, Personal Productivity, and Managing Brand Damage & Bad Press.
Others
Scrivener
Scrivener has a free month trial of its word-processing software designed specifically for writers. Keep track of plot outlines, character sheets, research material, and deleted scenes. Two weeks of quarantine is the perfect time to get cracking on the novel you always wanted to write.
Pimsleur
Get one week free of Pimsleur’s language learning programs (renews at $19.99 per month). Choose from about 20 languages including French, Mandarin, Russian, and Hindi. For double the learning, check those video streaming sites above for movies filmed in the language you want to learn.
Honorable Mention
Xbox Game Pass for PC
Xbox Game Pass for PC is a monthly subscription service that lets you play any of the games in the Game Pass library as much as you want while your subscription is active. You don’t need an Xbox; only an updated version of Windows 10. There are often free time codes floating around the Internet that give you extra months of GamePass at no cost. But to sign up on the official site, it’s $1 for your first month. That’s why it’s an honorable mention for quarantainment.
