Nintendo Switch 2 Online: Price, Tiers and Full Games List

Nintendo Switch 2 Online costs $19.99 a year for an Individual membership or $34.99 a year for a Family Membership covering up to eight accounts, and it unlocks online play, cloud saves and GameChat voice/video calling. Step up to the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack add-on — $49.99 a year Individual, $79.99 a year Family — and you also get Nintendo 64, Game Boy Advance, SEGA Genesis and Virtual Boy games, plus a Switch 2-exclusive Nintendo GameCube library, included DLC and the paid Switch 2 Edition upgrade packs for two Zelda games. Here's exactly what each tier costs and what you actually get for the money, verified against Nintendo's own membership pages.

What is Nintendo Switch Online, and do you need it on Switch 2?

Nintendo Switch Online is Nintendo's paid membership service, and it's required for online multiplayer in most Switch 2 games, just as it was on the original Switch. A membership also unlocks automatic cloud backups for save data, access to the Nintendo Classics retro game library, the Nintendo Music app, and — new with Switch 2 — GameChat, Nintendo's built-in voice and video chat feature triggered by the dedicated C Button on the Switch 2 and its Joy-Con 2 controllers.

There is no separate "Switch 2 Online" product; it's the same Nintendo Switch Online membership and the same Nintendo Account used on the original Switch, now with a few features — GameChat and the GameCube library — that only work on Switch 2 hardware. If you already pay for Nintendo Switch Online on an original Switch, that membership carries over.

Nintendo Switch 2 Online price: Individual vs. Family membership

Nintendo sells four membership options in the US, split across two service tiers (Switch Online and Switch Online + Expansion Pack) and two household sizes (Individual and Family). Pricing is unchanged from what Nintendo lists on its official compare-memberships page:

A Family Membership is managed by one organizer who invites other Nintendo Accounts to join, and every member gets the full benefits of whichever tier the household buys — there's no cut-down "family tier" of features. Nintendo frames the math as working out to under $5 per person per year for a full eight-person Switch Online Family Membership, or around $10 per person per year for an eight-person Expansion Pack Family Membership, which is the cheapest way to get GameCube, N64 and the rest of the expanded library if you have people to split it with.

What's included in the base Nintendo Switch Online membership

The standard (non-Expansion Pack) membership is the one you need just to play online, and it bundles in several extras:

• Online play: Access to online multiplayer in compatible Switch 2 and Switch games.
• GameChat: Voice and video chat with friends, started from the C Button on Switch 2 hardware.
• Save Data Cloud: Automatic online backup of save data for compatible games, so progress survives a lost or swapped console.
• Nintendo Classics (NES, Super NES, Game Boy): A curated library Nintendo's own classic-games page describes as "over 150 classic games."
• Nintendo Music: A companion smartphone/tablet app for streaming music from Nintendo games.
• Special offers: Periodic in-game bonuses, discounts and member-only merchandise.

None of the Expansion Pack-only consoles — N64, Game Boy Advance, SEGA Genesis, Virtual Boy or GameCube — are available on the base tier. If you only ever see your library listed as NES/SNES/Game Boy titles inside the Nintendo Switch Online app, that's expected; it means you're on the base membership rather than the Expansion Pack.

Nintendo Switch 2 Online Expansion Pack: price and what it adds

The Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack is an upgraded membership tier, not a separate purchase on top of a base plan — buying it replaces your Switch Online membership rather than stacking with it, and it includes every base-tier benefit (online play, GameChat, Save Data Cloud, Nintendo Music, special offers) plus a larger retro catalog and some modern-game extras:

• Nintendo 64: Including Mario Kart 64 with online play against friends.
• Game Boy Advance: Including The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap.
• SEGA Genesis: Including Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Earthworm Jim and Gunstar Heroes.
• Virtual Boy (US and Canada only): Including Mario Tennis and Galactic Pinball, played through a separate accessory sold on its own.
• Nintendo GameCube (Switch 2 only): A growing library detailed below.
• Included DLC and Switch 2 Edition upgrade packs for select games, at no extra cost — covered in its own section below.

At $49.99 a year Individual or $79.99 a year Family, the Expansion Pack costs exactly $30 more per year than the base tier at either household size. Nintendo does not sell Expansion Pack-only add-ons piecemeal (for example, you can't pay separately for just the GameCube library) — it's an all-or-nothing upgrade to the whole expanded catalog.

Nintendo Switch 2 Online games list, by console

Here's how the libraries split between the two membership tiers, per Nintendo's official compare-memberships page:

Nintendo keeps adding games to every tier of Nintendo Classics over time through free app updates, and it doesn't publish a single master list with an exact title count on its main marketing pages, so the running total shifts between each update. For anything mouse-and-keyboard adjacent, several Switch 2 games also support Switch 2's mouse mode, which is a separate, unrelated feature from Nintendo Classics worth knowing about if you're weighing Switch 2's other quality-of-life additions alongside Switch Online.

Every GameCube game on Nintendo Classics (Switch 2 exclusive)

Nintendo GameCube – Nintendo Classics is the headline Expansion Pack perk for Switch 2 owners: it's not available on original Switch hardware at all, and it requires both a system update and an active Expansion Pack membership. As of this guide's publication, the official Nintendo GameCube Classics page lists:

Nintendo has added GameCube titles on a roughly monthly cadence since launch, so check that official page before subscribing if a specific game is your main reason to upgrade. A real GameCube-style wireless controller is also sold separately for Switch 2, limited to one purchase per Nintendo Account while supplies last — it's optional, since any Switch 2 or Joy-Con 2 controller still works with the app.

Included DLC and Switch 2 Edition upgrade packs

Beyond retro consoles, the Expansion Pack bundles in DLC and upgrade content for a handful of existing games, at no extra cost as long as your membership stays active:

• Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – Booster Course Pass
• Animal Crossing: New Horizons – Happy Home Paradise
• Splatoon 2 – Octo Expansion
• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition Upgrade Pack
• The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition Upgrade Pack

You still need to own the base game — purchased separately — to use any of these; the Expansion Pack only waives the price of the add-on itself. Access to the included DLC and upgrade packs pauses if your membership lapses, and resumes if you resubscribe. Base Switch Online (non-Expansion Pack) members can still buy any of this DLC individually at full price; they just don't get it bundled in.

GameChat, cloud saves and other member perks

A few perks apply to every Switch Online member regardless of tier:

• GameChat: Switch 2's built-in voice and video chat, launched with the C Button on the console and Joy-Con 2. It works for both Switch Online and Expansion Pack members — upgrading to the Expansion Pack doesn't unlock extra GameChat features.
• Save Data Cloud: Compatible games back their save data up online automatically, so you can restore progress after a factory reset, a repair, or moving to a new console.
• Nintendo Music: A free companion app (phone, tablet, or in a car via supported systems) that streams official soundtracks from Nintendo games, independent of which console library you subscribe to.
• Special offers: Rotating member-exclusive discounts, in-game bonus items and merchandise opportunities announced through Nintendo's "What's New" updates.

None of these four is gated behind the Expansion Pack — the add-on is purely about the bigger classic-games catalog, GameCube access and the included DLC/upgrade packs covered above.

Free trial: how to try before you buy

Nintendo offers a 7-day free trial of the base Individual membership, redeemable once per Nintendo Account (details and eligibility are on Nintendo's own Nintendo Switch Online support page). A few conditions apply: the trial automatically converts into a paid, auto-renewing one-month membership unless you turn off auto-renewal before it ends, it can't be applied to the Expansion Pack tier, and it isn't available to an account that already has an active Switch Online or Expansion Pack membership. There's no equivalent free trial specifically for the Expansion Pack tier or the Family Membership option.

Individual vs. Family vs. Expansion Pack: which should you buy?

A few straightforward rules of thumb based on the pricing above:

• Playing online solo, no interest in retro games beyond NES/SNES/Game Boy: Switch Online Individual at $19.99/year covers it.
• Two or more Nintendo Accounts in your household: A Family Membership is cheaper per person than multiple Individual memberships at either tier — $34.99/year for up to 8 accounts on base Switch Online, or $79.99/year for up to 8 accounts on the Expansion Pack.
• You want GameCube games on Switch 2, N64, SEGA Genesis or GBA titles, or the bundled Zelda upgrade packs and DLC: You need the Expansion Pack specifically — none of that is available on base Switch Online at any price.
• You mostly play physical, boxed games: Membership tier doesn't change how your cartridges work, though it's worth knowing how Switch 2's game-key cards function if you're buying physical copies of newer releases alongside your membership.

If you're borrowing a friend's digital library rather than buying your own copies, that's a different system from Switch Online entirely — see our explainer on how GameShare works and which games support it for how local co-op without extra copies actually works on Switch 2.

What's next

Pricing and the four-tier structure above reflect Nintendo's current US membership pages as of this guide's publication. The parts most likely to change are the game libraries: Nintendo adds GameCube, N64, GBA and SEGA Genesis titles on a rolling basis, usually announced through its "What's New" site and the Nintendo Switch Online app itself. Before subscribing or upgrading, it's worth a quick check of Nintendo's own compare-memberships and GameCube Classics pages (linked in the sources below) to confirm the current title count and price haven't shifted since publication.

Written byJonah Reyes

Jonah Reyes leads Pandromeda's gaming coverage: console and handheld hardware, release dates, pricing changes, patch notes and the business moves behind the biggest franchises. He sources every date and price from the platform holders and publishers themselves, and says plainly when something is still only a rumour.

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