Disney just announced that it will increase the price of Disney+ in the United States again. The company will charge $15.99 per month from October 2024 onward.
Here are the details:
- Disney+ with ads: price increases from $7.99 to $9.99 per month.
- Disney+ ad-free: price increases from $13.99 to $15.99 per month. The yearly price increases to $159.99.
Disney has more than doubled the price of its ad-free plan since its launch in 2019. Back then, customers paid $6.99 per month for the ad-free experience.
Disney-owned Hulu and ESPN are also increasing the price of subscriptions:
- Hulu with ads: from $7.99 to $9.99
- Hulu without ads: from $17.99 to $18.99
- ESPN+ with ads: from $7.99 to $9.99
- ESPN without ads: from $10.99 to $11.99
The Hollywood Reporter speculates that Disney wants to push more customers to a Disney Bundle subscription. It includes the ad-powered Disney+ and Hulu subscriptions for $10.99.
Considering that both Disney+ and Hulu cost $9.99 with ads already, it is “just” $1 extra to get both services. At least, until the next price increase that is.
Disney has not announced price increases for other regions. It is probably only a matter of time before it will announce those.
Expect more price increases from (most) major streaming providers in the coming 12 months.
Closing Words
Streaming services increase prices regularly, and it seems to work. Netflix is gaining subscribers, even though it has increased the price of its subscriptions several times in recent time.
There are only three options available to break this cycle:
- Subscription-hopping – subscribe for a month or two, watch everything, unsubscribe. Never have more than one active subscription.
- Buying physical – you may miss out on some shows, but what you buy is yours forever. Also option to sell again or buy used.
- Don’t subscribe and do not buy media — Might work for some as well.
Are you subscribed to streaming services? If so, to which and why? Feel free to leave a comment down below.
I heard from a few YouTubers that “Subscription-hopping” is going to become more difficult. They will either make one month subscription impossible or put some cancelation fee, or will not allow you to subscribe if you cancel their service within previous year. When it is going to be implemented, nobody knows, but rumors are flying.
If too many do it, they may be inclined to do something about it. I would not really be affected. Subscribing to a service once per year is fine. If they add cancellation fees, which I think they cannot do in many regions of the world, then I’d stop using them altogether.
Cancelation fee that I heard about would not be that obvious. They will let you leave, seemingly without penalty. But when you try to resubscribe, the price for you would be much higher than for somebody who have not used the service for a long time because you left the service recently. I heard that most services may implement this trick to combat “the churn”.
I remember cable companies used this trick on me before. I had to wait for at least a year after cancelation to resubscribe and get regular or introductory monthly rate.
Again, this trick would not work on me either. I could wait a couple of years until screaming service has enough new content to watch, but someone who is very impatient will be surprised.
If you can afford a TV like the one in the image you’re not going to be put off by a menial price increase like the one just announced. Presumably Disney thinks everybody has got one.
I do not subscribe to a whatever streaming service and have no intention to.
Price increase does not demotivate addicts. Excessively high subscription fees motivate healthy minds, even minds of those who can afford it.
In the three options mine is ‘Don’t subscribe and do not buy media’ generally speaking, with very few exceptions when ‘Buying physical’.
Fashion participates to addiction when one wishes to debate about the last streamed-only production around the coffee machine as showing off with his latest top-notch van.
Middle-classes are increasingly becoming “petits bourgeois” as we say in French, that is to believe that one is all in how others perceive him to be. He may evoke politics, philosophy, religions, society in chosen and educated terms, but if he doesn’t know what the latest Netflix production is all about, he’s out. Pathetic.
I didn’t renew Amazon Prime because I don’t like the difficulty of cancelling auto-bill, which I never want, the price is too high and they now have more ads. Instead, I got Walmart+ which comes with Paramount+, so that is the service we use. If I don’t renew Walmart+, I will likely subscribe to Paramount+, which will be the first time I’ve subscribed to a service à la carte. I really resent paying at all for “TV” which is ad-infested regardless. But I do like Paramount+ and it is not too expensive.