Your HBO Max Bill Is Going up (Yes, Again)

It’s beginning to feel like the streaming giants are fighting to see who can get away with the highest prices — not who’s got the best library, but who can justify charging more for it.

In January, Netflix increased its entire slate of plans, and Disney+ announced its latest rounds of hikes last month. Not to be outdone, HBO Max is joining the party of what have become annual increases with a bump that puts it squarely into the Netflix pricing zone.

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Effective today, the cost of an HBO Max Standard plan will increase to $18.49 per month, surpassing the Netflix Standard plan, which rose from $15.49 to $17.99 earlier this year. Meanwhile, HBO’s Premium tier goes up by $2 to $22.99 per month, edging closer to the eye-watering $24.99 Netflix Premium plan: the gold standard for expensive streaming services.

This latest move by HBO Max leaves Disney+ trailing behind, making it look like something of a bargain. The House of Mouse charges only $18.99 for its Premium streaming plan, offering the same 4K UHD/HDR quality four-device streaming as Netflix and HBO Max — at a much more affordable price.

It’s worth noting that Disney+ also has no equivalent of the Standard plan in the US. This leaves a gap between its Premium tier and its ad-supported plan, which is actually the most expensive of the bunch at $11.99 per month.

Still, HBO Max is edging closer with today’s price hikes, which now take its Basic with Ads plan up to $10.99 per month — a $1 increase — while Netflix somewhat ironically remains the most affordable of the ad-supported crowd, charging only $7.99 per month.

For those keeping score, here’s how the major players line up in late 2025:

The good news is that it’s likely we’ve seen all the big price increases for this year, but if history is any indication, Netflix could be announcing another round as soon as January 2026 to maintain its pricing lead.

Still, HBO Max and Netflix aren’t the only services trying to justify higher prices. Apple’s now plus-less Apple TV streaming service hasn’t been immune to price increases, although at $12.99 per month for its only ad-free tier, it’s still quite a bargain. Some would argue that Apple can’t get away with charging much more than that due to its relatively limited content library, but it’s also a case of quality over quantity. Apple is the only streaming service to win a Best Picture Oscar and has collected more than its fair share of Emmy awards over the years, with shows like Ted Lasso and The Studio setting records for both nominations and wins.

Still, it’s hard to imagine Apple hitting the pricing heights of HBO Max or Netflix. Even its recent bump to $12.99 was only for its monthly price — the annual and Apple One bundle prices remained unchanged, making it feel more like a play to retain subscribers than a desire to pull in more revenue. After all, Apple has some amazing shows, but its more limited content library encourages “churn” — people signing up for a few months at a time to binge everything they can and then cancelling until new seasons of their favorite shows arrive.

Bundling Apple TV with other services like Apple Music was the company’s first attempt to keep a steady level of subscriber numbers, and more recently it’s teamed up with NBCUniversal’s Peacock to draw in more subscribers who may not be as firmly entrenched in the Apple ecosystem. That kind of bundling is becoming a more common strategy among many other second-tier streamers who don’t have the cachet to compete with the big three, even as prices skyrocket.