For the past couple of years, savvy cord-cutters have known how to get Paramount+ (the service formerly known as CBS All Access) without paying a dime.
Practically every month, Paramount (the media company formerly known as ViacomCBS) doles out coupons for a month of free service, valid for both new and returning subscribers. As long as you don’t already have an active subscription, you can redeem these coupons repeatedly and never pay for Paramount+. The codes even work with Paramount+ Premium, which has limited ads and provides a live local CBS stream.
The current free Paramount+ codes as of September 15, 2023, per Doctor of Credit, are SUPERPOWER, REDEEM30, or GOLD, and you can use any of these codes to bundle a free month of Showtime as well. While Paramount occasionally promotes deals on Paramount+, the wiser move is to avoid paying at all and stick with these free codes instead.
Free is better than cheap
I first wrote about these free coupons in October 2020, when the service was still called CBS All Access. However, the process for redeeming these codes has changed a couple of times in recent months. Pay close attention to the following steps to avoid being charged:
- Visit paramountplus.com. Important: This coupon only works on the Paramount+ website. Do not sign up using the Paramount+ app.
- If you’ve subscribed to Paramount+ before, sign out out your account.
- Hit the “Try it Free” button on the home page.
- Select the Premium plan, and make sure to choose monthly billing.
- Add Showtime: You should now see a splash page offering to add Showtime to your plan. Select “Get the Bundle” if you’d like to add it at no extra cost.
- Create an account, or use the “Sign In” button at the top of the screen to log in.
- On the final checkout page, find the box that says “Your Plan.”
- Click the blue “Have a coupon code?” link, then enter your coupon (currently SUPERPOWER, REDEEM30, or GOLD) in the box.
- Confirm that a “One month FREE” trial offer appears on the checkout page.

Jared Newman / Foundry
Note that with the current sign-up method, the check-out page implies that your card will be charged immediately. In my tests, entering a valid code does not result in your card being charged, provided that the “1 Month Free” messaging appears at checkout, but I can’t guarantee that this method will work indefinitely.
You don’t need to be a new subscriber to redeem these free Paramount+ codes, but you can’t add them to an active subscription. Instead, you must let your subscription expire before entering a new code. If you’ve recently signed into the Paramount+ website, you’ll also need to sign out again before starting the subscription back up again.
To avoid being billed automatically after your free month is over, cancel your subscription shortly after signing up. (I’ve found that if you cancel immediately, it will nullify the free trial.) You’ll still get the full month and your subscription will cancel automatically at the end.
My preferred tactic for remembering to cancel? Use the “Snooze” function in Gmail for Paramount+’s confirmation email, but you can also just add an item to your calendar or ask your phone’s voice assistant or your smart speaker to set a reminder for you.

You can cancel Paramount+ online before your subscription is over and still get the full month.
Jared Newman / IDG
You can cancel online through the Paramount+ account page. To complete the cancellation, you’ll need to reject Paramount’s offer for an extra free month, and then give a reason for why you’re ending the subscription. (I usually just say it’s too expensive. What streaming service isn’t?)
Once your subscription expires, you can repeat the process again. The website Doctor of Credit has a page that often lists the latest code, and I usually post them in my Cord Cutter Weekly newsletter when new ones arrive.
Will the free codes last?
I have no way of knowing whether Paramount+ will continue offering free coupons in the future—the company did not respond to a request for comment on its strategy—so skipping the more widely promoted sales is a bit of a gamble. Still, it’s worth noting that Paramount+ has offered discounts in the past, only to maintain its free coupon pattern for those who didn’t take the bait.
When it first rebranded from CBS All Access last year, for instance, Paramount+ allowed customers to buy a one-year subscription for $30 with ads or $50 without—a 50-percent discount in both cases. Anyone who took that deal missed out on the many free-month coupons that have followed.
Also, the free coupon strategy seems to have worked out well for Paramount. In a press release, the company says it exceeded its first-year growth goals for Paramount+ after rebranding the service from CBS All Access in March 2021, and it ended last year with 32.8 million subscribers. In my previous coverage, the company said it had a lot of success turning freebie takers into paying customers.
That makes sense to me. On a large enough scale, it’s easy to imagine millions of people not bothering to cancel, not knowing that free-month coupons are a regular occurrence, or genuinely loving Paramount+ enough to feel that the full price is justified. And while I continue to insist that you shouldn’t pay for Paramount+, I’m well aware that my soapbox is not especially large.
But for those of us in the know, maybe that’s for the best.
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