X

Disney Plus is hiking prices starting Friday

After Thursday, the monthly rate of Disney Plus goes up $1.

Joan E. Solsman Former Senior Reporter
Joan E. Solsman was CNET's senior media reporter, covering the intersection of entertainment and technology. She's reported from locations spanning from Disneyland to Serbian refugee camps, and she previously wrote for Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal. She bikes to get almost everywhere and has been doored only once.
Expertise Streaming video, film, television and music; virtual, augmented and mixed reality; deep fakes and synthetic media; content moderation and misinformation online Credentials
  • Three Folio Eddie award wins: 2018 science & technology writing (Cartoon bunnies are hacking your brain), 2021 analysis (Deepfakes' election threat isn't what you'd think) and 2022 culture article (Apple's CODA Takes You Into an Inner World of Sign)
Joan E. Solsman
2 min read
disney-plus-app-iphone-11-9833

Disney Plus launched in November 2019 to high demand and has quickly become one of the biggest streaming services by subscribers in the US. 

Angela Lang/CNET

Disney Plus is raising its price by $1 to an $8-a-month subscription in the US starting Friday, with its annual subscription going up $10, to $80 a year. And Disney's discounted bundle that packages Disney Plus, Hulu and ESPN Plus together will also go up by $1 in the US: People with the bundle that includes ad-supported Hulu will see their bills rise to $14 a month. Those with the newer bundle, which includes ad-free Hulu, will start paying $20. 

The price hikes, announced in December, will begin showing up for existing subscribers in their first bill on or after Friday. They also apply to Disney Plus globally, not just in the US. The increases in other countries are roughly on par with those in the US, only in local currencies. For example, in continental Europe, prices are going up by two euros to nine euros a month.

"These price increases reflect an increase in the underlying value of the Disney Plus product offering," Disney Chief Financial Officer Christine McCarthy said in December when the company announced the plan. 

By comparison, Netflix's most popular plan costs $14 a month, after the streaming giant raised its own prices earlier this year. Netflix's cheapest tier is $9, and its premium package -- which unlocks perks like 4K resolution, HDR image quality and the ability to stream on four devices at the same time (benefits that Disney Plus offers standard) -- costs $18 a month. 

The pricing flex comes as Disney Plus has proved to be the standout success of the so-called streaming wars, a period over the last year and a half when seemingly every major media company (and some tech ones) rolled out their own streaming services to take on the likes of Netflix. Disney Plus has signed up more than 100 million subscribers, far outracing all the new competitors from AppleHBONBCUniversalDiscoveryViacomCBS and others. One media analyst called Disney Plus "one of the greatest product launches of all time." 

Disney Plus' solid footing also spurred the company to remove its seven-day free trials for new members, as of last June. 

Watch this: 5 ways to get more out of Netflix