Just months after it abruptly cracked down on password sharing and began charging subscribers for extra households, Netflix announced it will be increasing the prices on Basic and Premium plans in the U.S., U.K. and France.
The price change has already gone into effect, reports say. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Basic plan, the lowest-price tier that offers viewing without ads, will increase from $9.99 to $11.99 a month. The Premium plan, which allows users to watch in Ultra HD and download content onto multiple devices, will increase from $19.99 to $22.99.
“As we deliver more value to our members, we occasionally ask them to pay a bit more,” Netflix writes in a letter to shareholders, per The Verge. “Our starting price is extremely competitive with other streamers and at $6.99 per month in the US, for example, it’s much less than the average price of a single movie ticket.”
Per THR, Netflix Co-CEO Greg Peters also said “occasionally” raising the prices to deliver better content is part of the company’s “philosophy.”
The Wall Street Journal recently reported the streamer planned to raise its costs “a few months” after the SAG-AFTRA strike ends, but it appears they decided to go forward with the plan despite the ongoing strike, which seems to have no end in sight.
Perhaps with this extra money, Netflix will finally be able to provide better residuals, especially as the AMPTP’s new contract with the Writers Guild of America requires them to be more transparent regarding streaming data. One can only hope, right?
The streamer has been rethinking its membership tiers in recent years. This is the second time in two years Netflix has hiked up the prices for subscribers. Just last year, the ad-free Standard tier was inreased to $15.49 a month and the Premium plan was increased to $19.99. And they may have rolled out the $6.99 ad-supported plan, but there’s no telling if that price won’t also see an increase in the coming years.
The company also cracked down on password sharing earlier this year and began requiring members to pay $7.99 per each additional household they wanted to add to their accounts. Though it ruffled some feathers among Netflix subscribers, the company reportedly saw an average of 73,000 new sign-ups per day after it went into effect.
It may just be a matter of time before the other subscription tiers also see another price increase.
While the company does expect some cancelations amid these changes, they plan to win them back with their “incredible content.”
“So we’re going to go after them the same way we’re going after people who have never signed up for Netflix, which is having incredible content, offering an incredible value, and getting them so excited that they just have to sign up,” Peters said, per THR.