Netflix will be raising the price of its standard plan by $1 for new users.
Compared to other streaming services the price hike is not awful as Hulu now has two paid subscriptions, including one with ads for $7.99 per month, or an ad-free plan that costs $11.99. Shares were down as much as 5% Thursday before the news broke that Netflix is implementing a price increase for new subscribers in America, Canada and parts of Latin America. It follows a similar increase in its European markets, where they increased the monthly subscription price of the same plan from €8.99 to €9.99 in late August.
Over the next year, Netflix will spend more than $4.3 billion on its programming, according to the report.
An increase of $1 per month will reportedly generate an $750m a year in revenue for the streaming service. Prices for the so-called one-screen and four-screen plans aren’t affected.
For a few new customers, Netflix will soon be a little more expensive. Customers who are now paying less appear to be grandfathered into their earlier plans – looking at your account page will show you just how long you’re guaranteed to keep your current price for.
Customers who signed up since the last price increase will pay $9 per month until October 2016.
Netflix has grown to 65 million subscribers thanks to its combination of global expansion and high-profile original content, such as the series “House of Cards” and “Orange Is the New Black”.
An example of this was when Netflix failed to renew its deal with Epix, which cost it a number of popular movie titles, such as “The Wolf of Wall Street” and “World War Z“.
