Netflix Hikes Prices: Premium Now Costs $23 a Month

Well, that didn’t take long. Less than three weeks after rumors began circulating of an impending Netflix price increase, the streaming giant has announced that it will be jacking up the price of its Premium plan to $22.99 per month, breaking the $20/month barrier for the first time.

The news came yesterday as part of the company’s third-quarter financial results, and thankfully, it’s not all bad news. If you’re a subscriber to the $15.49 Standard plan, you won’t be seeing any price increases; in fact, with the Premium hike, you may even decide it’s worth dropping to the lower tier and living with 1080p “Full HD” streaming; after all, that’ll now save you $7.50 per month.

However, if you’re already considering moving down a tier, you can save even more if you’re willing to live with ads; Netflix’s $6.99 ad-supported plan, which, other than ads, provides mostly the same benefits as the Standard plan, is also avoiding a price increase this time around, which makes it an even more attractive option.

That might even be the point of these latest price hikes. While Netflix maintains that “ad revenue would not be material to our business in 2023,” it also adds that it considers this a serious long-term opportunity as “ad dollars follow eyeballs” and more TV viewing shifts over to streaming services. Getting more people to opt for its ad-supported plans will be key to convincing advertisers to come on board, growing its revenue in ways that merely adding more subscribers can’t match.

Further, if you’ve been grandfathered in on the Netflix Basic plan that the company killed off over the summer, we have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that Netflix will let you stay on that plan as they’re not eliminating it for existing subscribers — at least not yet. The bad news? It’s also getting a price increase of $2 to take it to $11.99/month.

This is also likely a calculated move to encourage subscribers to move off the Basic tier without actually forcing them off. While other streaming services have seen similar price increases over the past year or so — even Apple TV+ raised its standalone subscription price by $1/month last fall — most of these still offer more options than Netflix’s 720p “HD” Basic tier. At $11.99/month, it’s a shorter jump to move up to the $15.49 Standard level and even greater savings to move down to the $6.99 Standard with Ads.

The new pricing is live now for new subscribers and will presumably take effect for current subscribers on their next billing cycle. Netflix is making similar price increases for Basic and Premium in the UK and France, although other countries seem to have dodged this bullet for now. For example, Netflix Premium in Canada remains priced at $20.99 CAD, which works out to a little over $15 USD at current exchange rates.

In its note to investors, Netflix stated that it “mostly paused price increases as we rolled out paid sharing” but that it feels its prices and plans “meet a wide range of needs” and are highly competitive with other streamers for the value it delivers.

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.

Netflix

While that statement may be true from a pure dollar perspective, the reality is more nuanced. For instance, while Disney+ charges $7.99/month for its ad-supported plan, it also provides users with full 4K UHD and HDR quality for that price — and up to four simultaneous streams. By comparison, Netflix only offers 1080p “Full HD” streaming and two screens.

Further, Netflix was careful to emphasize its “starting” price, as the higher tiers aren’t very competitive at all. For $13.99/month — $1.50 less than a Netflix Standard plan — you get ad-free 4K UHD and HDR streaming on up to four screens, plus offline downloads. That’s basically the same level of service that Netflix now charges $22.99/month for.