Disney+ to hike prices, introduce ad-supported tier in December

Disney+ will introduce a new ad-supported tier of its streaming service later in 2022 while hiking the price of the current ad-free plans, including bundles with Hulu and ESPN+.

The new pricing structure, which will also include ad-supported versions of its Hulu and ESPN+ services, will officially debut to the public on Dec. 8, Disney announced on Wednesday.

Under the new structure, a basic Disney+ subscription with ads will cost $7.99 — the same cost as its current pricing tier. A premium version with no ads will run customers $10.99 a month.

Hulu with ads is also seeing a price increase from $6.99 a month to $7.99 a month. A premium Hulu subscription with no ads is also getting more expensive at $14.99, instead of the $12.99 it is currently.

ESPN+ will remain the same price at $9.99 a month with ads.

As far as the Disney bundle, existing subscribers will see their subscription hiked by a $1 to $14.99 a month. Note that this only applies to legacy Disney Bundle subscribers — new subscribers will pay $19.99 a month for Disney+ and Hulu with no ads.

A basic Disney Bundle with ads across Disney+ and Hulu will cost $9.99 a month. Adding in ESPN+, which isn't included in the basic plan, will add $2 to that price point.

"With our new ad-supported Disney+ offering and an expanded lineup of plans across our entire streaming portfolio, we will be providing greater consumer choice at a variety of price points to cater to the diverse needs of our viewers and appeal to an even broader audience," said Kareem Daniel, Chairman of Disney Media & Entertainment Distribution.

26 Comments

rob53 13 Years · 3312 comments

About 2 years ago

Ad supported—not the reason I’m streaming. I’m tired of all the stupid ads on YouTube and like being able to watch TV shows and movies without constantly being interrupted. If Disney actually provided more and better content I’d pay the increased price, otherwise I’ll probably drop it.

jimh2 8 Years · 670 comments

Quickly figuring out how cable pricing works. At some point it will be cheaper to just get cable again. They will price themselves right out of their customers. I paid for the initial 3 years, but after that I’m done. They really don’t come close to comparing to what Netflix has.

hmlongco 9 Years · 586 comments

Every single service thinks that they can gradually shift prices up to $20-$25-$30-$40-$50 per month. Or more.

And when they find out they can't, that's when they'll decide that in order to increase revenue even further they'll be "forced" to include advertising at the beginning of every show, the end of of every show, and eventually every 10 minutes during the show.

In addition, of course, to selling every scrap of user data they can gather.

Which is when I'll be "forced" to go back to simply buying the few things I want to see and dropping everything else.

kelemor 5 Years · 31 comments

Well been holding on but this helps made decisions in the future easier….

StrangeDays 8 Years · 12986 comments

hmlongco said:

Every single service thinks that they can gradually shift prices up to $20-$25-$30-$40-$50 per month. Or more.

And when they find out they can't, that's when they'll decide that in order to increase revenue even further they'll be "forced" to include advertising at the beginning of every show, the end of of every show, and eventually every 10 minutes during the show.

In addition, of course, to selling every scrap of user data they can gather.

Which is when I'll be "forced" to go back to simply buying the few things I want to see and dropping everything else.

Yeah I prefer this, I have long bought seasons of the select shows I'm interested in on iTunes, and still do. Paired with one or two streaming services. I definitely don't need to try to recreate an entire cable subscription's offerings. Cable sucks anyway, it's mostly cooking shows and crummy reality TV. And, of course, ads.

Unskippable ads completely suck, and there's no way on earth I'd pay even $1 to watch them. That the networks have so few ads and keep repeating the same GD ads over & over...is infuriating.