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Playon is an premium app for iOS, Android and Windows that is used to record movies and TV shows from your favorite streaming platforms.
Whether it’s Netflix, Hulu, Disney+ or YouTube, Playon let’s you record and download videos so that you can watch offline whenever you like.
The recordings are stored in the Playon Cloud where you stream or download them to your device. But it’s more than just a recorder as there are features that let you schedule recordings, automatically skip ads, cast your videos to your TV and more.
To record videos, you’ll need credits. Your monthly plan comes with 30 credits for 30 recordings. For more recordings, you simply buy credit bundles from the Playon store.
Playon gives you a 7-day free trial so that you can try the service. This comes with 7 credits to download 7 videos. The trial requires your credit card which is charged automatically for a month’s worth of credits after your trial ends.
Below, I’ll show you how to get started with a Playon Cloud 7-day free trial.
How To Start Playon Cloud 7-Day Free Trial
If you want to test out the app to see how it works, you’ll have to purchase Playon because they no longer offer a 7-day free trial.
When they did, it worked like this:
1. Get 7 free recordings
After clicking on “Try Playon Cloud Free“, you’ll be taken to this page where they briefly explain what you’ll be getting.
Click on the “Get 7 Free Recordings” button to start the signup process.
2. Create your Playon Cloud account
You’re given several options on how to signup for a Playon Cloud account. Sign up with authentication services Apple or Facebook or use your email address with a password.
I used Facebook to signup because it’s easy and fast and I don’t have to create yet another password.
3. Enter your payment details
This seven day trial requires that you enter your payment details so you’ll do this on the secure checkout page here.
You can use Google Pay, PayPal or enter your credit card information.
I used PayPal for this and just so that you know, there’s a temporary authorization charge of $1.00 to make sure that you can cover the payment.
4. Free trial confirmation
Once you enter your payment details, your 7-day trial starts. The confirmation page shows you where you can download the app and even has a link to text you the app download link.
Of course, if you signed up on a phone or tablet, you wouldn’t see this. Instead, you’ll bet the app download page.
Also present on the confirmation page is the date when Playon will bill you after your free trial ends and what you’ll be billed for.
Your next step from here is to download the app, log in with the same credentials you used at signup and start recording videos.
You can also download and setup the Windows app and Playon Cloud downloader if you want to download to your computer.
How to Cancel Playon
If you sign up on your computer, you would not find any way to cancel your subscription inside your account.
I was confused at first but later found that it was actually very easy to cancel to avoid getting automatically billed.
If you like the service then you may want to keep the subscription. However, there might be reasons why you may want to cancel or avoid getting automatically billed and I’m going to show you where to go and what to do.
To cancel, you need to go to the app on your phone and log in.
Then follow these steps:
- Tap on Settings from the menu at the bottom.
- Tap on Cloud Plan.
- Tap on “Cancel Plan“
You’ll get a confirmation screen showing that your plan will expire instead of getting renewed. You’ll also get the option to resume your plan which you can do after the trial ends.
How Much Does Playon Cost?
When you try Playon Cloud, you’re automatically enrolled in their monthly plan which costs $4.99 for 30 credits and 100GB of storage.
This is good for up to 85 hours of 1080p video or 170 hours of SD quality video.
There are also plans for 500GB, 1TB, 2TB and 4TB of storage. You still get 30 credits per month with all these plans but you can store your videos for as long as you like.
Additional recording credits, just in case you plan to use more than 30 credits per month, can be bought via the Playon store.
While the monthly credits expire, these additional credits do not have an expiry date and you can use them anytime. 50 credits start at $7.50 and should be enough for most users. However, you can get up to 500 anytime credits for $65.
To recap:
- Recording & storage – starts at $4.99/month (30 credits + 100GB storage)
- Anytime credits – starts at $7.50 (50 credits)
Playon Free Trial Limitations
The Playon free trial runs for 7 days and in that aspect, it’s just like the paid plan as you’ll have the exact amount of credits for each day.
You’ll also have 7 days of cloud storage which is the same as on the paid plan. On the paid plan, unless you’re paying for storage, your recordings will expire. You’ll still have access to them if they’re stored on your device.
On a free trial, you won’t be able to record, download, stream or cast channels and you won’t be able to skip ads on the desktop app. You can however, use the app to stream or cast your media library including recordings you’ve downloaded from the Playon Cloud.
The mobile apps to my knowledge does everything you would expect from a paid subscription.
Is Playon Cloud Legal?
This is a big question and something I asked myself when I saw it.
For an app that allows you to record streaming media from streaming sites like Netflix and HBO Max, wouldn’t this be illegal?
However, Playon Cloud is completely legal because it doesn’t rip the movies and shows but instead screen records them. This makes it legal as you could screen record anything on your device.
As long as the recordings are for personal use and you’re not going to make money from the recordings, you will be fine.
Many users of Playon use the app to download movies to watch when they’re not going to have Wi-fi connections such as when they’re going on a trip, or when shows are expiring on a site like Netflix and they have limited time, or to have content for entertaining kids without the intrusion of ads. These are just some examples.
Don’t use your downloads to re-upload to video sharing sites as you’ll be infringing on copyrights.
Once again, the app and what it does is completely legal.
