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 Value Rating: ( ) Includes prices at all DVD rental levels and our assessment of what you actually get for your money.
Design Rating: ( ) Includes how well the website interface is designed and easy to use; there are some really aggravating online DVD rental sites out there.
Service Rating: ( ) This measure of customer service--which includes DVD turnaround times--is the least "scientific" rating, relying on reports we've gathered from the net and from personal experience.
Titles: The total number of available DVD titles. The market leaders boast 50,000+ titles, but an online DVD rental company stocking 10,000 titles will probably have all the DVD titles you'll ever want. If you're interested in high definition, see our Blu-ray rankings.
Phone Support: Less than a third of DVD rental companies offer a real customer service phone number; important as it can be very frustrating and slow trying to use email. We speak from long experience...
Free Trial: These vary widely from nothing to a month, and sometimes are capped at fixed number of DVDs. Read the Terms on each DVD rental company's site if you're pursuing a free trial, as many have strict requirements for cancellation. Also, the sites "powered by" the top online DVD rental company, Lovefilm, limit you to one trial with any of its affiliates. Our Top Free Trials lists the best, and omits these extra "powered by" DVD rental sites which you cannot double up on. If you're very cheeky you can "free trial hop" down the list and enjoy free DVD rentals for several months...
Prices: In pounds per month for standard, unlimited 1 to 3 disc at-a-time DVD rental subscriptions. This does not include volume discounts sometimes offered for paying a year in advance--see the individual DVD rental company reviews for this information.
Rating Moves: Our recent changes to site rankings; see What's New for the details and reasoning behind these.
"Powered by" Sites: As above under Free Trial, these companies' DVD rentals are run by online DVD rental giant Lovefilm. Our attitude to these sites is that you should skip the middleman and stick with the original-in every case we reviewed, we liked the original better.
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Ranking of the UK DVD Companies with Unlimited DVD Rentals
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Value, Design, and Service |
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Monthly Price (by discs out at once) |
Recent |
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| DVD Rental Companies |
Ratings |
Titles |
Phone? |
Free Trial? |
One |
Two |
Three |
Moves |
Subscribe/Review |
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 |
60,000+* |
yes |
30 days (special offer) |
9.99 |
12.99 |
14.99 |
 |
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65,000+ |
yes |
14 days |
9.99 |
12.99 |
15.99 |
- |
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35,000+ |
no |
4 discs |
9.49 |
12.49 |
14.99 |
- |
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40,000+ |
yes |
14 days |
- |
12.99 |
14.99 |
 |
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18,000+ |
no |
14 days |
9.75 |
11.75 |
13.75 |
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4,000, only adult films |
no |
4.99 first month |
14.99 |
19.99 |
24.99 |
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(S. Asian specialists) |
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unknown |
yes |
none |
9.99 |
14.99 |
- |
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330+, only family films |
no |
none |
7.99 |
9.99 |
13.99 |
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12,500+ |
no |
none |
9.99 |
12.99 |
14.99 |
NEW |
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4,000+ |
no |
1st month half price |
- |
- |
12.75 |
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| DVD Rental Companies |
Ratings |
Titles |
Phone? |
Free Trial? |
One |
Two |
Three |
Moves |
Subscribe/Review |
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* = Blockbuster count bonus special feature discs as a single rental and ships them to you free; the other companies count bonus discs as separate rentals; so even though Blockbuster has lower numbers, they're comparable to Lovefilm's inventory. ** = Unlike most, these online DVD rental companies are not unlimited and have strict limits on DVDs rented, so we only recommend them for people who only want to rent a few DVDs each month
*** = Their DVD free trial period varies based on tariff, see details on our DVD rental company review page
Frequently Asked Questions about DVD Rental Trials:
How many DVDs can I watch in a month? In theory, on an unlimited DVD rental plan, you can get through films as quickly as the post will allow. Some people have rented 40 DVDs in a month on a standard 3-disc at a time unlimited DVD rental tariff. However, at very high levels like this , rental companies lose money on repeat postage, and several companies are suspected of “throttling” their DVD rentals to slow down such very high volume renters. However, this should not affect the average renter, who could easily watch 12-20 DVD rentals per month.
Are unlimited DVD rental tariffs value for money ?: We certainly think so; an average unlimited DVD rental tariff of 3 discs per month for 15 pound, even assuming you only watch 3 DVDs per week, this works out to about 1.20 per disc, almost a third of high street prices. For this reason we think unlimited rental plans over an advantage of limited/pay-per-disc plans (which average 1.66-2 pounds per disc).
What is a Fair Use Policy? This relates to the first question; rather than secretly “throttling” back unlimited DVD rentals on high-volume users, some companies like Lovefilm have an explicit “Fair Use Policy” which states that very high volume users may have their DVDs slowed down so that lower-volume customers have a better chance to get their favorite DVD titles. This does seem to go against the unlimited DVD rental philosophy, but again, it should only kick in if you rent many DVDs per month, so the average viewer needn’t worry about it. If you do rent many DVDs, we suggest a company like Blockbuster, which doesn't have a Fair Use Policy or widespread reports of throttling on unlimited DVD rental customers.
Online DVD rental prices and terms change frequently; check the company website for the latest.
 UK-DVD-Rental-Guide.com is not responsible for any losses resulting from the information provided (see Disclaimer). If you do spot a discrepancy, please email us and we'll update the site.
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Rental Basics