Since the October 2025 redesign, the subscription Xbox Game Pass Ultimate exploded to €26.99 per month in France, with an increase of “up to +50%” according to Mac4Ever. For players who remain subscribed all year round, the bill now exceeds €320 annually, simply to maintain access to the Microsoft catalog.
In April 2026, the pressure is even greater: Hades II And Replaced arrive on day one in the Xbox Game Pass on April 14. In other words, this is precisely the moment when we need Ultimate, but not its official price. The good news is that there is a legal alternative around €11.99 per month which retains all the advantages.
Xbox Game Pass: why did your subscription rise to €26.99 per month?
Microsoft has divided its offer into three levels: Xbox Game Pass Essential at €8.99 per month, Game Pass Premium at €12.99 and Game Pass Ultimate at €26.99. Essential and Premium limit the catalog and above all skip the big day one releases.
Ultimate concentrates everything that interests big players: more than 400 games on console, PC and cloud, around 75 day one releases per year, EA Play, Ubisoft+ Classicsbenefits Fortnite Crew and streaming up to 1440p. Officially, Microsoft only sells monthly. Over one year, €26.99 x 12 represents €323.88, only in full payment.
Cheap Xbox Game Pass Ultimate: how to upgrade to an alternative at €11.99?
The key in 2026 is to buy Xbox Game Pass Ultimate codes rather than letting Microsoft charge you every month. Via the comparator Allkeyshopwe regularly find months of Ultimate around €11.99, for the same product as the official subscription. You receive a digital key, activate it on your Xbox account, and your subscription length increases.
The comparator displays several merchants (Loaded, other specialized stores), their prices and their ratings. Frandroid, for example, quotes 12 months of Ultimate at €128.79 at Loaded, or around €10.73 per month instead of €26.99. The advantage of Allkeyshop is to quickly sort by region, by price and by reputation of the seller to stay on legitimate keys.
Concretely, you choose a “Europe” or “Global” offer, you pay, then you receive a code. On console or PC, simply go to the Microsoft Store, “Redeem a code” section, enter the key and validate. You can “stack” several codes in a row, within the usual limit of 36 months. The old Xbox Live Gold to Ultimate conversion trick becomes much less interesting next to these €11.99 keys.
Game Pass Ultimate: how much can you save and when can you start using it?
Over 12 months at the official rate, you pay €323.88. By finding Ultimate at €11.99 each month, the same year costs you €143.88. The saving therefore reaches around €180 over one year, without losing access to the games or the services included. With a 12-month offer at €128.79, the difference even climbs to more than €195 compared to the Microsoft price.
For a player who mainly targets big releases like Hades II And Replacednothing prevents you from only buying three or four months of keys around these launches, always well below €26.99. In practice, each month of Ultimate obtained via code gives you exactly the same rights as the standard subscription: day one games, EA Play, Ubisoft+ Classics, cloud gaming. Before spending another €26.99 on the next renewal, a test month at €11.99 is clearly worth the detour.