Welcome back to Buffering, where we’re still processing the fact that summer is (at least unofficially) over. The good news, at least for TV lovers, is that some of the best shows of the year debut in the fall. I’ve only seen the first episode of Peacock’s The Paper, but I found it super-promising (and overall reviews have been positive). Hopefully audiences will respond, because Peacock could sure use another scripted success (the last comedy or drama that really broke out for the streamer was Poker Face) — and as of late July, Peacock now ranks as the most expensive major streamer, at least in terms of ad-supported tiers. The NBCUniversal streamer hiked prices over the summer, and it wasn’t alone at asking folks to pay more. As my colleague Eric Vilas-Boas and I detail in this week’s numbers-centric lead story, virtually all the big platforms (and even some smaller ones) have raised prices over the past year. We’ve broken down not only how much the services cost now but how prices have exploded over the past decade as streaming has replaced linear TV. Also this week, some fun news about the launch of Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune on streaming. Thanks for reading, and whatever you do, don’t look up how many grams of sugar are in a Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte.
|
—Joe Adalian, Vulture's West Coast editor |
|
|
Subscribe now to save over 40%
|
Get unlimited access to everything New York, plus a free tote. |
|
|
Your Favorite Streaming Service Is Only Getting More Expensive |
By Eric Vilas-Boas and Josef Adalian |
If there’s one thing streaming services love more than a rebrand or a bundle, it’s a price hike. In the past couple months, Peacock, Apple TV+, and even humble BritBox have raised their subscription rates. Asking customers to shell out more each month has been a part of the streaming business going back to the early days of Netflix, when it incrementally increased prices on certain tiers on an almost annual basis, and since more services began popping up to compete with the service in the past five or six years, they’ve been predictable additions to your streaming bills, some notable exceptions aside. To illustrate their ubiquity, we’ve rounded up as many as we could below — focusing on the major streamers’ so-called “standard” paid monthly subscriptions with and without ads. For ease of comparison, we omitted stuff like bundles and tiers like Netflix “Premium” and Hulu + Live TV, as well as any services which haven’t been around for at least two years or haven’t had some sort of price increase. We’ll update the Vulture version of this story with more services, too — and with the inevitable new price hikes when they roll out in a quarter or two.
A few insights we noticed as we browsed the numbers: ➼ The prices for plans at Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV+, and Peacock have more than doubled since their respective launches.
➼ Hulu’s ad-supported rate actually dropped at one point — very much an anomaly.
➼ Since launching in 2019, The Criterion Channel has never raised its prices. |
|
|
The Major Streaming Services |
Current monthly rates bolded. |
|
|
Ad-Free • 2011: Launched at $8
• 2014: $9
• 2015: $10
• 2017: $11
• 2019: $13
• 2020: $14
• 2022: $15.50
• 2025: $18 With Ads • 2013: Launched at $7
• 2025: $8
Since launch, Netflix has dramatically expanded its original and licensed programming, expanded to new global markets, and introduced live sports and video games to their service, so beyond inflation, it’s had overhead to account for over the years. Users may wonder why the ad-supported price introduced in 2022 was lower than what ad-free users were paying for Netflix in 2011; that’s because Netflix reasoned that it could make more revenue per user on the ad-supported plan even if it was less than half the cost of the standard ad-free plan, and priced it accordingly. Plus, as it also started cracking down on password sharing, it wanted to make sure folks unwilling to finally pay for their own full-price account had an affordable alternative to consider before walking away completely.
|
|
|
Ad-Free • 2015: Launched at $12
• 2021: $13
• 2022: $15
• 2023: $18
• 2024: $19 With Ads • 2010: Launched at $8
• 2019: $6
• 2021: $7
• 2023: $8
• 2024: $10
Hulu’s 2019 adjustment to its ad-supported plan was a rare price drop — at the time a hedge against users rebelling that the cost of its live TV service would be going up. More recently, the $4 hike between 2022 and 2024 has been designed to prompt users to switch to the Disney Bundle, which offers both Hulu and Disney+ at a deep discount. |
|
|
Ad-Free • 2019: Launched at $7
• 2021: $8
• 2022: $11
• 2023: $14
• 2024: $16 With Ads • 2022: Launched at $8
• 2024: $10
Like other services that launched the heyday of the early streaming wars, Disney+ was priced to move — a bet that $7 per month was a nice carrot for families and older fans of Star Wars and Marvel alike. Five years, one pandemic, a long Hollywood strike season, and two Bobs later, that $7 looks quaint by comparison. As for the relatively huge hikes to the cost of the ad-free plan, chalk that up to a the same thinking about the aforementioned Disney bundle, plus the industry-wide push to get people to watch ads again.
|
|
|
Ad-Free • 2020: Launched at $15
• 2023: $16
• 2024: $17 With Ads • 2021: Launched at $10
HBO Max/Max/HBO Max’s pricing has only gone up incrementally compared to its competitors in part because started out a higher price point than any other post-Netflix streamer, thanks to the HBO of it all. But in that same time, Warner Bros. Discovery and CEO David Zaslav have become known for axing content across the service, from classic HBO shows to Sesame Street. Will the departure of Discovery content (once WBD’s breakup is finalized) drop the price? Don’t hold your breath.
|
|
|
Ad-Free • 2016: Launched at $9
• 2024: $12
Prime Video doesn’t call its “ad-free” option here another stand-alone plan, but customers can pay an additional $3 per month to remove ads. Otherwise, strikingly, Prime Video’s rate remained the same until it began rolling ads onto its platform. Of course, many folks haven’t even clocked how stable the base rate for Prime Video has remained because the most common way they get Prime Video is through Amazon’s much broader (and somewhat pricier) Prime subscription service, which offers everything from “free” package delivery to discounts on gasoline.
|
|
|
Ad-Free • 2021: Launched at $10
• 2023: $12
• 2024: $13 With Ads • 2021: Launched at $5
• 2023: $6
• 2023: $8
With its 2023 hike, Paramount+ also added Showtime to its ad-free plan and did away with Showtime’s standalone streaming service. On the bright side, it hasn’t added a special surcharge for Taylor Sheridan series — yet. |
|
|
Ad-Free • 2020: Launched at $10
• 2023: $12
• 2024: $14
• 2025: $17 With Ads • 2021: Launched at $5
• 2023: $6
• 2024: $8
• 2025: $11
At one point, Peacock was literally giving itself away for free — sort of, anyway. That’s no longer the case of course, but it’s another streamer, like Disney+ and Apple TV+, that learned from the Covid era that it couldn’t underprice its offerings forever. What’s more: The NBA is coming to Peacock, wrested away from David Zaslav in the last rights negotiation for an annual bill of $2.45 billion. Now both of Peacock’s standard plans cost more than Netflix’s. Plus, John Tesh wasn’t going to let NBC and Peacock use “Roundball Rock” for free. Somebody had to pay up.
|
|
|
Ad-Free • 2019: Launched at $5
• 2022: $7
• 2023: $10
• 2025: $13
A service without a robust licensed library that focuses mostly on originals would not have been appealing for $13 a month in 2019, but to be honest, it’s not too shabby in 2025. Apple has established itself with enough hits like Severance and The Morning Show and Ted Lasso to make the price point work, and even feel like a modest value compared to other major players like HBO Max or Peacock. |
|
|
Ad-Free • 2020: Launched at $9
• 2024: $10 With Ads
• 2023: Launched at $5
• 2024: $7 You’re not just getting AMC’s programs and live feed with this service; the streamer also bundles in content from horror-rific Shudder plus indie movies from Sundance and IFC, along with a sample of stuff from sister streamer Acorn TV (see below.) If the ad-free tier still seems a bit expensive, that’s in part because cable operators would freak if AMC offered it too cheaply.
|
|
|
The Other Streaming Services |
Current monthly rates bolded. |
|
|
Ad-Free • 2016: Launched at $6
• 2023: $7 |
|
|
Ad-Free • 2017: Launched at $10
• 2019: $11 |
|
|
|
