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.
Netflix spokesperson MoMo Zhou tells The Verge that 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 Zhou.
“As we continue to invest in programming and deliver more value for our members, we will occasionally ask our members to pay a little more so that we can re-invest to further improve Netflix,” the company’s letter to investors says. Netflix last raised the price of its subscription in October 2023. This is also the first time it’s raising the price of this ad-supported plan, which it rolled out in 2022.
Netflix added 19 million new subscribers over the past few months — the most in its history during a single quarter — bringing its global total to 300 million. This is the last time Netflix will reveal how many subscribers it added during the quarter, as the company said last year that it would only announce “major subscriber milestones as we cross them” starting in the first quarter of 2025.
Even with a subscriber count reaching new highs, and operating income ballooning past $10 billion for the first time, Netflix executives believe the company still has room for growth. The company’s letter to investors says it accounts for less than 10 percent of TV viewing in the countries it’s available in, “which suggests a long runway for growth as streaming continues to expand around the world.”
Along with the price hike, Netflix announced that it’s rolling out a new Extra Member with Ads plan, which will allow those on the ad-supported plan to add someone outside their household to their subscription. It currently costs an extra $7.99 per month to add someone outside your household to an ad-free plan.
The streamer ended 2024 with a strong content lineup that included new seasons of Squid Game and the League of Legends spinoff Arcane.
Netflix’s approach to live content has also gotten more aggressive within the past several weeks, as it has gone from airing “sports-adjacent” events like a golf tournament that paired PGA players with Formula One drivers to full-blown NFL games featuring performances from Beyoncé and Mariah Carey. But Netflix notes that it’s “not focusing on acquiring rights to large regular season sports packages; rather, our live strategy is all about delivering can’t-miss, special event programming.”
Despite running into some hiccups, the streamer also touted “record-breaking” viewership numbers for last year’s live boxing match between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul, while its WWE debut with Monday Night Raw locked in 4.9 million views, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Update, January 21st: Added information from Netflix.