Streaming keeps getting more expensive: all the latest price hikes

Apple raised the price of its streaming service for new and current subscribers on Friday, bumping it up from $12.99 per month to $14.99, Deadline and Variety are reporting. An annual subscription now costs $119, up from $99. Apple also increased the cost of its individual Apple One subscription, which includes Apple TV and Apple’s other subscription services, from $19.95 per month to $21.95.

According to Deadline and Variety, the price change is effective immediately, and current subscribers will be notified of it before their next bill.

ESPN is hiking the price of its subscription on September 17th, a change that will also impact its bundles with Disney Plus. In a support page spotted earlier by Sports Media Watch, ESPN says its ad-supported Select membership will cost $13.99 instead of $12.99 / month, while its Unlimited plan will rise to $31.99 from $29.99 / month.

The annual ESPN Select plan is also going to $139.99 from $129.99 / year, and the annual Unlimited tier is increasing to $319.99 from $299.99 / year. Meanwhile, Disney Plus bundles with ESPN Select are going up in price as well. Here’s a rundown of the changes:

Peacock is raising prices across its streaming plans once again, with the company’s cheapest ad-supported Select tier going from $7.99 to $8.99 / month, as reported earlier by Variety. The Premium plan with ads is increasing from $10.99 to $12.99 / month, while the ad-free Premium Plus plan is getting the biggest hike, jumping from $16.99 to $19.99 / month.

The price change goes into effect on August 18th for new or returning subscribers, and affects the streamer’s annual plans as well. Existing subscribers will see the price change on their next billing date on or after September 17th. Peacock has steadily hiked its prices over the past few years, with the streaming service last issuing a $3 increase in July 2025.

I am dying to know how much money Plex is about to make the next six weeks charging people to stream their own video from their own homes. Today, it’s giving every prospective customer until July 1st to lock in a lifetime subscription at today’s rates — before it triples the price to $750.

Plex already more than doubled the price of a lifetime Plex Pass subscription from $119.99 to $249.99 last March, and it’ll triple again on July 1st to $749.99. At that price, you’d have to subscribe for 11 years (at the current annual rate) to make the lifetime sub worthwhile.

YouTube Premium is getting more expensive in the US, with prices rising by $2 on standard individual accounts and as much as $4 for the family plan. The price hike is already in effect for new accounts, and is rolling out now for existing customers.

Premium’s Individual plan now costs $15.99 per month, up from $13.99, while the five-person Family plan is $26.99, previously $22.99. Premium Lite, which removes “most” ads but doesn’t include YouTube Music, is now $8.99 monthly, up from $7.99.

Netflix’s prices just went up, with its cheapest, ad-supported tier now reaching $8.99 / month (up from $7.99 / month), according to an updated support page spotted earlier by Android Authority. The standard and premium plans are also getting a hike, going from $17.99 to $19.99 / month and $24.99 to $26.99 / month, respectively.

The streaming giant last raised its prices in January 2025 and has made several updates to its platform since then, including launching video podcasts, continuing a push into live events, rolling out new TV games, and revamping its interface on both its TV app and mobile. It also nearly acquired the Warner Bros. studio and its streaming service, HBO Max, for $83 billion before declining to match a higher bid from Paramount.

Starting April 10th, Amazon’s ad-free Prime Video subscription will be rebranded as Ultra as its price increases to $4.99 per month from the current $2.99. Once it launches, it will also be the “exclusive” way to access 4K/UHD streaming, removing 4K streaming access from Prime subscribers who don’t pay extra.

Paying the extra five bucks for Ultra will also get you support for up to five simultaneous streams and up to 100 downloads, as well as access to both Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos audio. There are upgrades for Prime subscribers without Ultra after April 10th that will bring Dolby Vision (in 1080p) back after Amazon removed it from the plan in 2024, plus increases for both downloads (going up to 50 from 25) and simultaneous streams (going up to four from three).

Crunchyroll is raising its prices in the US and “select international markets,” including the first price hike to its lowest-priced tier since 2019.

Here are the price changes, according to Crunchyroll:

Paramount Plus is going up in price again. As part of its earnings report released on Monday, Paramount announced that it will raise prices for subscribers in the US on January 15th, 2026, bringing the ad-supported Essential plan from $7.99 to $8.99 per month, while the ad-free Premium plan will go from $12.99 to $13.99 per month.

Paramount says the price increase will “fuel continued reinvestment in the user experience and deliver an even stronger slate of programming” going forward. Like many other streamers, Paramount has hiked the price of its streaming service on an almost yearly basis. Paramount Plus raised prices in 2023 before hiking them further last June. It also recently raised prices in Canada and Australia.

Another day, another price increase for a streaming service, and this time it’s HBO Max, which has higher prices for everyone at the same time that its parent company puts everything up for sale. The first price hike for HBO Max hit in early 2023 before the service changed its name, and while that decision was rolled back in a re-re-branding, the prices still keep going up even after last year’s increase for ad-free plans.

If you subscribe to the Basic with Ads package, your price is going up by $1 per month or by $10 for full-year subscriptions, taking the prices to $10.99 and $109.99, respectively, as reported earlier by Variety.

Apple is raising the price of its streaming service. The company announced on Thursday that its $9.99 per month subscription will now cost $12.99 each month, marking a $3 price increase.

The price increase will go into effect immediately for new subscribers, while existing ones will see the changes reflected 30 days after their billing cycle ends, Apple spokesperson Tom Neumayr confirmed in an emailed statement to The Verge.

Today, Roku announced the forthcoming arrival of Howdy, a new monthly subscription service that will give its users access to a massive catalog of on-demand films and series. Like other streamers, Howdy will feature a selection of programming licensed from other studios, including Lionsgate and Warner Bros., as well as some of its Roku Original productions like Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. But Howdy will be ad-free, and at $2.99 a month, it’s much cheaper than other players in the streaming space — all of which have gradually raised their prices in efforts to boost profits.

In a statement about the service, Roku founder and CEO Anthony Wood said that Howdy is “designed to complement, not compete with” other, more premium platforms. Wood also stressed that Howdy costs less than a cup of coffee and insisted that Roku is trying to meet customers where they are by offering Howdy at such a relatively low price point.

A subscription to Peacock is about to cost more. NBCUniversal announced on Thursday that it’s raising the price of its ad-supported Peacock Premium from $7.99 to $10.99 per month, while its ad-free Premium Plus plan will go from $13.99 per month to $16.99 per month. News of the price hike was first reported by Vulture.

For new customers, the price increase will go into effect on July 23rd. Existing subscribers will see the hike on or after August 22nd, depending on when their next bill is. Peacock’s yearly plans will see similar increases, with Peacock Premium now priced at $109.99 per year (up from $79.99) and Premium Plus costing $169.99 (up from $139.99).

Max has become the latest streaming service to clamp down on password sharing. Warner Bros. Discovery announced on Tuesday that Max will charge an extra $7.99 per month to add someone to your account outside your household.

The new “Extra Member Add-On” allows subscribers across all tiers to invite a friend or family member to create a separate account with their own login credentials. These members can stream from one device at a time and “enjoy all other benefits included in the primary account owner’s base plans,” according to Warner Bros. Discovery. Subscribers can only add one extra member per account.

Plex is raising the price of its Plex Pass from $4.99 to $6.99 per month and gating a key feature behind the subscription. Starting April 29th, users who want to stream content from their media server outside their homes – and let other people access it for free – will need a Plex Pass subscription.

The price hike goes into effect on April 29th and will also bring its annual plan from $39.99 to $69.99. The lifetime plan will increase from $119.99 to $249.99. This change will affect new and existing subscribers, except those who already paid for a lifetime subscription.

Though Max has always said that it planned to charge more for access to its CNN and Bleacher Report Sports add-ons, the price hikes are coming in a roundabout way, targeted at subscribers of the streamer’s cheapest tier.

Max announced today that it no longer intends to charge subscribers of its Standard ($16.99 / month or $169.99 / year) and Premium ($20.99 / month or $209.99 / year) tiers an extra $9.99 a month for CNN Max and Bleacher Reports Sports. The add-ons will be removed from Max’s ad-supported tier ($9.99 / month or $99.99 / year) beginning on March 30th, however, meaning that subscribers will have to move up to more expensive tiers should they want to keep watching live sports and news.

Amazon has raised the price of its Music Unlimited service in the US, Canada, and the UK, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter. In an update on its website, Amazon says it’s raising the price for Prime members from $9.99 to $10.99 per month (or $99 to $109 / year), while the plan for non-Prime members is going from $10.99 to $11.99 per month.

The Unlimited Family Plan, which lets up to six people listen to music at the same time, is also increasing from $16.99 to $19.99 per month (or $169 to $199 / year). The price change went into effect for new subscribers on January 29th, 2025, while existing customers will have to pay the updated pricing when their subscription renews, or on or after March 5th, 2025.

Whenever Netflix raises its prices — which seems to happen roughly as often as Ben Affleck falls in love with an A-list celebrity — the company always gives the same reason. It needs the extra money, you see, in order to keep investing in the kind of programming and product its 302 million subscribers demand. That’s how the standard monthly price of ad-free Netflix jumped from $7.99 to $17.99 over the course of the last 13 years, including a $2.50 jump just announced during the company’s recent earnings report. There’s still a $7.99 monthly plan, of course, but that one includes ads — and it’s a dollar more expensive than it was a week ago.

But let’s be real with each other. You want to know why Netflix keeps raising its prices? Because it can. Because Netflix won. The rest of the streaming industry is competing ferociously over a finite pool of money, dealing with carriage disputes because of dwindling subscriber numbers, and panicking over the future of TV. Netflix is the future of TV.

Fubo has raised its English-language streaming plan prices by $5 each, with a Fubo spokesperson citing “rising costs from our programming partners,” reported The Streamable yesterday. Fubo’s Essential and Pro plans now start at $85 a month, while its Elite plan has gone up to $95 monthly.

“We only make adjustments when necessary,” a Fubo spokesperson said to The Streamable, “and we’re committed to keeping Fubo competitive while ensuring our subscribers have access to the channels, features and live events they enjoy.”

Netflix is raising prices yet again. In its latest earnings report released Tuesday, the streaming service announced that “we are adjusting prices today across most plans” in the US, Canada, Portugal, and Argentina.

As shown on Netflix’s plans page, the ad-supported tier is increasing from $6.99 to $7.99 per month, while the standard ad-free tier will go from $15.49 to $17.99 per month. Its highest-priced premium tier is also increasing from $22.99 to $24.99 per month. The price hikes will go into effect during subscribers’ next billing cycle, according to Netflix spokesperson MoMo Zhou.

Discovery Plus is going up in price, with its ad-supported plan going from $4.99 to $5.99 per month, and its ad-free plan increasing from $8.99 to $9.99 per month. The price hike will go into effect immediately for new subscribers, while existing subscribers will see the change during their next billing cycle or after February 7th.

Discovery Plus raised the price of its ad-free plan for the first time in October 2023. Following the launch of Max, Discovery Plus remained a standalone subscription despite most of its content appearing in Warner Bros. Discovery’s flagship streaming service. Discovery Plus has a mix of shows — ranging from ultra binge-worthy to ultra cringe-worthy — from channels like HGTV, TLC, the Discovery Channel, Investigation Discovery, Magnolia Network, and others.

YouTube announced a hefty subscription price increase this week that will shoot the monthly cost up by $10 to $82.99 on January 13th for existing members (or now, if you sign up today). Some subscribers are staving off the hike using the time-honored tradition of threatening to cancel, as one Verge reader indicated in a comment on our original story about the price hike.

That’s backed up by users in a Reddit thread that 9to5Google spotted, several of whom reported getting the offer to keep paying $72.99 for six more months when they tried to cancel their subscriptions, although some report that didn’t work for them. Some who did get to keep the old price say it happened only when they logged in using a web browser on their computer and pushed through offers to pause their subscription instead.