Netflix is determined to have its customers pay more than anyone else in the streaming TV landscape. While they release more movies and series than anyone else, prices have increased at a very difficult pace to justify.
Although Netflix no longer allows new or existing users to subscribe to the basic plan without ads (it disappeared in Europe months ago), which now costs $11.99 per month, company executives announced today that they will be phasing out the plan in some countries where there are ad-supported plans. They will start with Canada and the United Kingdom in the second quarter of this year.
This leaves subscribers with the option of the Standard plan at $15.49 per month (€12.99) as the cheapest ad-free plan within Netflix. Going from $11.99 to $15.49 per month is a pretty big jump, and it means that there really isn’t a middle ground for ad-free plans.
Advertising plan or premium plan, there are no gray areas
The idea of Netflix is that customers will have to pay $6.99 (€5.49) per month for their basic plan with advertising or $22.99 (€17.99) per month for the Premium level. Netflix stopped allowing new subscribers to sign up for their basic plan in Canada last year, before introducing the change in the US and the UK.
In the fourth quarter of 2023, just like in the previous quarter, the number of subscribers to the advertising plan increased by almost 70% quarter after quarter, thanks to improvements in the offering (such as downloads) and the gradual elimination of the Basic plan for new subscribers.
The ad-supported plan now represents 40% of all Netflix subscriptions in markets where this option is available.
In a video interview for investors, Greg Peters, co-CEO of Netflix, stated that the ad-supported offering already has 23 million monthly active users and that Netflix’s priority is to “scale”.
He said that includes making it more attractive, with updates like the ones we saw last year in the cheapest version, which increased the resolution to 1080p, added multiple streams and enabled downloads, and how Netflix is “changing our plans and pricing structure elsewhere”.
Netflix also announced that it added 13.1 million subscribers during the last quarter of 2023, bringing its total number to 247 million worldwide.
