The monthly subscriber cost for Netflix’s ad-supported tier has supposedly been revealed.
According to Bloomberg, Netflix is considering pricing its upcoming ad-supported tier between $7 to $9 a month. This would offer massive savings for new and existing subscribers as the most-popular plan on Netflix currently costs $15.49 a month with no commercials. Those who subscribe to the ad-supported tier will also reportedly only receive four minutes of commercials per hour. The new tier does not yet have an official rollout date, but Netflix is hoping to introduce its cheaper option during the fourth quarter of 2022 to select markets.
Netflix announced that it would introduce an ad-supported tier in April 2022, with Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos later stating that the decision to introduce an ad-supported tier to the streaming service came after realizing that the company had “left a big customer segment off the table, which is people who say: ‘Hey, Netflix is too expensive for me and I don’t mind advertising.'” In July, Netflix selected Microsoft to be its global advertising technology and sales partner. “Microsoft has the proven ability to support all our advertising needs as we work together to build a new ad-supported offering,” Netflix shared in a statement. “More importantly, Microsoft offered the flexibility to innovate over time on both the technology and sales side, as well as strong privacy protections for our members.”
Could Ads Save Netflix’s Declining Subscriber Base?
The addition of an ad-supported tier comes after Netflix failed to meet subscriber expectations for 2022, with Q1 seeing a loss of 200,000 subscribers and Q2 reporting a loss of close to a million accounts. Netflix is also no longer the world’s largest streaming company with Disney recently surpassing them with 221 million direct-to-consumer subscribers across Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+. Netflix is still the largest when it comes to individual streaming services at 220.7 million subscribers, followed by Amazon’s Prime Video at 175M and Disney+ at 152.1M.
Disney’s recording-breaking count comes as the Mouse House gears up to launch its ad-supported tier for Disney+. The plan, titled Disney+ Basic, will launch on Dec. 8 in the United States and cost $7.99/month. Similar to Netflix’s plans, the Basic tier will only run four minutes of ads per hour, which will be broken up into 15- and 30-second spots. The current tier for Disney+, which currently carries the $7.99/month price tag, will be rebranded as Disney+ Premium and see its monthly price increase to $10.99.
