DStv Decoder Price in Nigeria With or Without a Dish (2026)
A DStv decoder costs ₦7,900 without a dish, or ₦15,000 with a dish and a month's viewing. The Explora is ₦223,999. New packages start at ₦6,000.
From 5 November DStv Nigeria’s packages are Starter at ₦6,000 a month, Select at ₦11,000, Sports at ₦21,000 and Premium at ₦44,500. The hardware stays as it was: the HD decoder that most people call the Zapper and the Explora that records, with more than ₦200,000 between them. Dealers can be a little above or below these prices and MultiChoice runs promos from time to time, so treat them as the baseline.
| What you buy | Price | What is in it |
|---|---|---|
| HD decoder (Zapper) | ₦7,900 | The decoder only. No dish, no subscription. |
| HD decoder + dish kit | ₦17,900 | The decoder (₦7,900) and a dish kit (₦10,000). No subscription. |
| Decoder kit with a month’s viewing | ₦15,000 | The decoder, a dish kit and one month of the entry-level package. |
| Explora + Smart LNB | ₦223,999 | The recording decoder and the LNB it needs. |
Unless there is already a DStv dish on your wall, buy the ₦15,000 kit. It costs ₦2,900 less than the decoder and dish kit with no subscription at all. DStv’s decoder pages list only the other three, because the kit is a promotion: MultiChoice announced it for DStv and GOtv at its Lagos briefing, and DStv’s site says its hardware promotion runs to the end of February. Ask an installer or dealer for it.
None of these prices mentions installation. Before you pay, ask whether fitting the dish is included. If it is not, the installer’s fee is a separate cost and it is better to know the figure up front.
The low decoder price is recent. It was ₦20,000 until June 2025, when MultiChoice halved it to ₦10,000, and it dropped again to ₦7,900 on 1 November 2025, with the dish kit at ₦10,000. DStv lists one price for the whole country, so Lagos pays what Port Harcourt pays. What differs from place to place is what a dealer or installer adds on top.
DStv packages from 5 November
The decoder is a one-time cost. The package is the real bill.
| Package | Per month | Channels | What DStv sells it on |
|---|---|---|---|
| Premium | ₦44,500 | 162+ | Formula 1, Grand Slam tennis, PGA golf and rugby, plus M-Net and everything below |
| Sports | ₦21,000 | 139+ | Every Premier League and Champions League match, WWE and UFC |
| Select | ₦11,000 | 131+ | Selected Premier League and Champions League, M-Net Movies+, Nickelodeon, a WWE channel |
| Starter | ₦6,000 | 98+ | SuperSport Kickoff, M-Net Legends, Nat Geo Wild, local favourites |
These names and prices apply from 5 November. Before that date the prices are Padi at ₦4,400, Yanga at ₦6,000, Confam at ₦11,000, Compact at ₦19,000, Compact Plus at ₦30,000 and Premium at ₦44,500. The channel counts above are from DStv’s packages page; its announcement quotes lower ones.
Active customers have nothing to do and need no new decoder. DStv says the move is automatic and comes in phases, so an account can show the old name for a while. Its announcement has Sports taking over from Compact, which is ₦2,000 a month more, and Starter and Select from Access and Family, the older names of Yanga and Confam, at the same prices. MultiChoice told its briefing that Compact Plus customers go to Premium, and that anyone who has paid months ahead keeps what they paid for until that time runs out.
On whether your bill goes up, DStv says only that there are “some changes in pricing”. Padi is not mentioned at all, and DStv’s page still lists it, so ask before you count on it.
You can move up a package any month, so begin on the one you are sure you will watch and upgrade when a tournament starts. If these numbers are more than you want to spend, look at GOtv, where packages start at ₦4,000 a month, and at StarTimes. GOtv’s Starter, Select and Sports now cost the same as DStv’s, with 68+, 87+ and 94+ channels, so GOtv’s advantage above its cheapest package is that it needs no dish.
If the Premier League is the reason you are buying DStv, Sports is the package with every match. Select has selected matches, and on Starter DStv promises the Premier League Match of the Week on SuperSport Kickoff. The SuperSport LaLiga channel starts at Starter too.
The HD decoder, or Zapper
This is the decoder almost everyone ends up with, and it does one job: it puts DStv on your TV in HD. It works with every package up to Premium, so buying the cheap box does not lock you out of any channel. It connects by HDMI, and it still has the old AV output for a TV that has no HDMI port. There is a USB port for DStv’s Wi-Fi connector.
What it cannot do is pause, rewind or record. If you miss the first ten minutes of a match, you have missed them.
The one-year warranty needs proof of purchase, so keep the receipt.
The decoder-only price makes sense in two situations: replacing a decoder that has died when the dish is still up, or adding a second decoder for another room, which DStv calls XtraView. Be careful with used ones. A second-hand decoder may still be tied to the last owner’s account, so have DStv move it into your name before money changes hands.
The Explora, at 28 times the price
The Explora is the decoder with a hard drive in it. It needs a Smart LNB on the dish, which is why DStv sells the two together. For ₦223,999 you get:
- Pause and rewind on live TV.
- Recording, up to 110 hours of it.
- DStv Catch Up, for shows that have already aired.
- BoxOffice movie rentals.
- Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, if you have the speakers for it.
For most homes it is not worth 28 times the Zapper. Recording a series while you watch something else is lovely, but the money is more than ten months of Sports. Every decoder package above Padi also lets you stream through the DStv Stream app, where you can watch on your phone and download shows for later, and that covers a good part of what people want an Explora for. It will not rescue the match when the light goes either: a decoder with no power records nothing.
The Explora suits a household that is already on Sports or Premium, watches a lot, has steady power or an inverter, and argues over the remote. Anyone else should buy the Zapper and put the difference into the subscription.
The first year’s bill, hardware included
Each row is the hardware plus twelve months of TV at the new prices, with no installer’s fee. The Explora row needs a dish as well if you do not already have one.
| Setup | How it adds up | First year |
|---|---|---|
| ₦15,000 kit, staying on Starter | ₦15,000 + 11 months at ₦6,000 | ₦81,000 |
| ₦15,000 kit, then Select | ₦15,000 + 11 months at ₦11,000 | ₦136,000 |
| ₦15,000 kit, then Sports | ₦15,000 + 11 months at ₦21,000 | ₦246,000 |
| Explora on Sports | ₦223,999 + 12 months at ₦21,000 | ₦475,999 |
DStv Stream needs no dish or decoder
DStv Stream is the same service over the internet, with nobody on your roof. All four new packages are sold this way, at the same monthly price as the decoder version, so the cheapest way to stream is Starter at ₦6,000 a month. You can register up to four devices and watch on one at a time, on a phone, tablet, laptop or smart TV.
The catch is data. HD video gets through well over a gigabyte an hour, and a weekend of football can finish a monthly data plan by Sunday night. If your home internet is unlimited and steady, streaming saves you the hardware. If you are on mobile data, the ₦15,000 kit pays for itself quickly.
XtraView for a second room
Both decoders support XtraView. You link two decoders to one subscription and each room watches its own channel. It costs a second decoder plus a monthly access fee on top of your package. DStv does not print that fee on its decoder pages, so ask for the current figure when you buy.
