Crunchyroll’s free guest pass service is one of the best, free ways to enjoy HD streaming anime. Full access to Crunchyroll comes at a price, but if you want access to the premium content, there are many ways to snag as many free Crunchyroll guest passes as possible.
Read on to discover:
- How to get free guest passes as a non-paying user
- How to give away free guest passes to other users
- How to get unlimited free guest passes
- How to block ads on Crunchyroll
- Crunchyroll premium account hacks
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What Type of Accounts Are Available on Crunchyroll?
Crunchyroll is an anime streaming service that offers one of the largest legally-sourced anime libraries available. Users can get access to hundreds of most subbed, and some dubbed, anime as well as read from a large selection of available manga.
Crunchyroll has three methods that users can use to enjoy their content:
- Premium accounts
- Free accounts
- 48-hour guest passes
Premium accounts
With the premium account, users can enjoy several different benefits. Most notably, premium account users can enjoy all of Crunchyroll’s on-demand anime streaming without advertisements.
Crunchyroll offers paid users access to HD streaming, a particularly desirable feature unavailable for those opting for a free account. Additionally, premium account users get to watch new anime episodes within hours of their Japanese air date.
Finally, premium users are awarded one free guest pass each month that they can give to friends. Guest passes are awarded to premium users every 30 days. Unredeemed passes expire after 90 days, effectively limiting premium users to 3 active guest passes at a time. The guest pass service is offered free by Crunchyroll and does not cost premium users anything extra.
Free account
Crunchyroll’s free accounts are a surprisingly good option for anime lovers. Users have access to almost the entire library of content available on Crunchyroll, with some distinct limitations.
Free users cannot access the newest episodes until a week after they’ve been launched. That means that premium users will get to enjoy new episodes of popular anime like Attack on Titan and My Hero Academia a week before free users.
Those opting for a free account are also forced to watch all of their content in much lower quality. Crunchyroll limits free users to 480p or SD quality video.
Free users must also watch all of their content with advertisements. The advertisement-based model lets Crunchyroll provide free content. That may be undesirable for those streaming from ISPs or internet services with data caps. You’ll be forced to watch multiple 30-second advertisements that can eat up data limits if you’re not careful.
Crunchyroll 14-day free trial
If you haven’t used it already, Crunchyroll offers a 14-day free trial. To obtain the free trial, you will need to sign up for an account, including providing Crunchyroll with payment information via credit card, PayPal or other payment methods.
You can cancel the account anytime within the 14 days. However, during the free trial, you will have access to all that the premium account has to offer. That includes the new episodes and HD streaming.
You will not be given guest passes during the 14-day free trial.
Guest Passes for Full Anime Access
As stated, those with a premium Crunchyroll account are given guest passes to give out to anyone they want. This option is unavailable with other popular services, like Funimation. Guest passes give you full access to all of Crunchyroll’s premium content. That includes HD streaming and newly released episodes of anime.
Guest passes are Crunchyroll’s “carrot on a stick” method to entice new premium account sales. That said, a particularly savvy free user can land several free Crunchyroll guest passes and binge watch different anime series several times a month.
What you need to know about Crunchyroll guest passes
There are a few great ways to get your hands on some sweet guest passes. However, there are some things to know about guest passes before you start spamming forums and groups for free access.
Guest passes are limited.
The first limitation on guest passes is how long you have before each one expires. After registering a guest pass, you’ll have 48-hour access to all of the premium content. This means to best use your guest passes, you’ll need to binge-watch episodes over the 48-hour time period.
Crunchyroll also limits the number of guest passes you can use, Per Crunchyroll, “There is now a limit of 10 guest passes per 6 months. That means that you have 10 guest pass charges and each one has a cooldown of 6 months.”
Crunchyroll offers the guest pass service to try to persuade users to create premium accounts, which is why they limit guest pass usage so heavily.
There are no guarantees.
While we believe these methods are valuable and useful, we cannot guarantee that you’ll get any guest passes. Whether or not you get guest passes is fully dependent on the charity of those with premium accounts.
The best chance to land free guest passes is to be an active, positive participant in different forums and groups. While it’s certainly possible to land guest passes as a stranger to a group, you’re more likely to land those passes if you’re recognized as a constructive contributor.
Generally speaking, active participation usually involves posting interesting news and reviews, actively engaging in discussions, and avoiding spamming threads looking for free handouts. Negative behaviors will likely reduce your chances.
Guest passes are one-time codes.
Once you obtain a guest pass, you must enter the code. You can do so using Crunchyroll’s guest pass redemption page.
However, note that if you’re receiving that code in a public forum, someone might grab your code first. Since each code can only be submitted once, you’re out of luck if you don’t snap the code up fast enough.
With that in mind, here are several useful ways to max out your guest pass uses.
Method #1: Join an anime Facebook group
This one comes from personal experience and is almost a guaranteed method to get guest passes. As a long-time anime fan, I’ve also been a part of different anime groups. The largest group I am currently a member of is the closed Facebook group, Reformed Anime Hub. In RAH, we maintain a Google spreadsheet of free guest passes that we try to update regularly so users can just grab a guest pass as needed.
However, many new users often just make posts asking if anyone has guest passes. Considering RAH has over 800 members, a vast majority of whom have Crunchyroll accounts, those asking for a free pass almost always get one within minutes of posting.
There are a large number of anime groups on Facebook, some that have well over 100,000 members. That includes the following groups:
- Anime (over 152,000 members)
- Anime & Manga (over 155,000 members)
- Anime Fanatics International (over 270,000 members)
How to find anime Facebook groups
You can easily find anime Facebook groups by doing the following:
- Go to the search bar on Facebook and type in “Anime”
- Under the search bar, select “Groups”
You’ll see a display of groups listed that match the term “anime.” Look for groups that have the term “Active” listed in the group description on this page.
You may also want to consider looking specifically for closed groups. Those groups are likely to have a much smaller number of members but are more likely to be more actively friendly to newcomers and easier to get involved in.
Many closed groups may require you to meet certain criteria to join. (Reformed Anime Hub, for example, is a closed Facebook group that has certain membership criteria which include agreeing to group rules.)
Method #2: Join an anime forum
As with anime-related Facebook groups, many anime forums are filled with users who have Crunchyroll premium accounts, and guest passes just waiting to give away. Here are some of the largest and best options to consider.
Crunchyroll official forums
If you have a free Crunchyroll account, you already have access to the site’s official forums. The thread to follow here is called “The Official Guest Pass Thread.” This active thread was designed for exactly what it sounds like: exchanging official guest passes.
The thread has a few simple rules for users looking for free guest passes:
- Do not ask for a guest pass privately over PM; all passes must be requested publicly via the forum.
- Understand the limit on guest passes (stated earlier)
The forum’s posts are chronologically listed from oldest to newest. To find the newest posts, click on “Last” on the pagination menu at the top. This will take you to the most recent post.
Many users will often post their guest passes freely. However, you can also make a post asking for guest passes. Just note that because the forum disallows private messaging of guest passes, you’ll need to make sure to check quickly for a response to avoid having someone else take the code.
Access the Crunchyroll Subreddit page and get free guest passes.
The Crunchyroll Subreddit is an active, open community for Crunchyroll users. Unique to this community is the fact that the moderators run a weekly “Guest Pass Megathread.”
You do not have to join this community to participate.
In fact, you actually can’t join this subreddit, although you can subscribe to it by clicking on the orange Reddit icon on the right side of the page.
The Weekly Guest Pass Megathread is refreshed every week. There are no rules on this thread, unlike on the Crunchyroll exchange forum. That means you can post requesting for guest passes and receive them privately through Reddit’s messaging system. You can also find guest passes posted by users openly on the thread. Note that public posts are essentially a “first come, first served” post, as guest passes can only be used once.
Method #3: Follow Crunchyroll on Facebook
This method is far from foolproof but may help land you a few guest passes if you’re particularly diligent. Crunchyroll maintains an active Facebook page with over 2.5 million followers. This means that millions of people, many of whom are premium account holders, regularly receive the company’s Facebook posts.
Follow Crunchyroll on Facebook and then comment on different posts asking for guest passes. Note that because this method is public, you may be met with some fairly negative responses by other users in ways that likely wouldn’t occur in an anime group. However, it’s certainly worth a shot.
You Can Get Crunchyroll Ad-Free Without Premium
If you’ve used up all of your guest pass allowances, you may still be able to enjoy some premium aspects to Crunchyroll without having to pay a dime.
Using an ad blocker, you can watch Crunchyroll’s free content without having to worry about getting interrupted with advertisements on the page.
AdBlock is a popular option for this, as it maintains specific filters that will block ads on sites like Crunchyroll. Other ad blockers that may work include
Will AdBlock always work?
No, it won’t. Crunchyroll has been fighting ad blockers for years. There are good reasons for this. As stated earlier, Crunchyroll makes money off of advertisements, which helps support the cost of providing free accounts.
Should you use an ad blocker?
There are arguments for and against using ad blocking software on free-to-use services like Crunchyroll. In fact, you can find an on-going debate on the Crunchyroll forums about whether ad blocking is a form of stealing.
Some individuals believe that ad blocking robs Crunchyroll of revenue that it should be owed. Crunchyroll’s costs for delivering the content often includes subtitling the anime (particularly simulcasts) and purchasing licensing agreements from content creators. Crunchyroll also published an article in 2011 reporting that the total cost of making an anime was around $145,000 per 30-minute episode. Given Crunchyroll uses a good portion of its revenue to pay content creators (who are already dealing with low wages), anime artists are also losing revenue.
A counter-argument to this is that Crunchyroll is making enough money from premium accounts to support the free accounts. Some also argue that ad blockers help protect users against intrusive advertising. For those streaming on internet service plans with data limits, ad blockers are said to help save on costly data and avoid going over data use limits.
A third argument some make is that copyright laws are unjust, and therefore using ad blocking software on Crunchyroll is perfectly just. This is the same argument individuals make who use less reputable anime sites, such as 9Anime or KissAnime.
Whether or not you use an ad blocker will depend on your personal convictions on the issue of copyright law, corporation revenues, and content creator profit sharing.
Don’t use Crunchyroll premium account hacks
During our research, we discovered some sites posting about various methods to hack a Crunchyroll premium account. This allows users to enjoy the benefits of premium account access without having to pay for it.
To be clear, we do not encourage any unethical hacking of premium accounts. While the use of ad block is debatable, using a premium account hack via various software methods is, in fact, stealing.
Flixed.io does not encourage any form of account hacking. We also will not post any hacking methods here.
Grab Those Guest Passes!
Crunchyroll has established itself as the current king of anime streaming. Even with the many free options available, many users still choose to pay for Crunchyroll premium accounts. Part of this is due to Crunchyroll’s excellent service and video streaming quality. Thankfully, the guest pass system is still alive and active, with many premium account users happily handing out guest passes, no questions asked.
With the right motivation, you should be able to max out your guest passes in no time!
You could also leave a comment in the comments section believe. I’m pretty sure I have a guest pass or two waiting to give away!
Sam Cook is a full-time content strategist by day, a part-time freelance content writer since 2015. In another life, he was a high school English teacher for nearly a decade. Based in sunny New Orleans, he writes long-form educational content on technology, including Insurtech, Fintech, HRtech, and content streaming. He loves whittling down complex ideas within these areas that make decisions easier for buyers. When he’s not reading books with his son Miles and playing video games with the family, you can find him immersed in his growing collection of Euro-style board games.
