This photo shows the Warner Bros. logo. Discovery is displayed on the smartphone screen.
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Warner Bros. Discovery‘s Max announced price increases for its ad-free option on Tuesday, as many streamers raise the price of their memberships.
This decision was made just 12 days before the premiere of the second season of HBO’s prequel “Game of Thrones” “House of the Dragon”, the series premiere of which attracted almost 10 million viewers, making it the largest in HBO history.
Max currently has three pricing options: with ads; no ads; and completely ad-free, allowing for more devices and downloads than cheaper plans.
The price of the ad-free streaming service will escalate by $1 per month to $16.99, while the annual ad-free plan will escalate by $20 per year to $169.99. The cost of the ultimate ad-free plan will also escalate by $1 per month to $20.99, while the ultimate annual plan will escalate by $10 per year to $209.99. The ad-supported option will remain unchanged at $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year.
While pricing will go into effect immediately for up-to-date subscribers, existing subscribers will see the price escalate starting with their next billing cycle on or after July 4th.
The price escalate follows the discovery of Warner Bros Disney decision to combine streaming services, Disney+, Max and Hulu. The package will be available in both ad-supported and ad-free versions. Although the price was not revealed, CNBC reported that it will be offered at a discount to make it a more desirable option.
Warner Bros. Discovery last month did not include earnings and earnings estimates in its first-quarter earnings report, even though it added two million direct-to-consumer streaming subscribers this quarter.
In the company’s earnings call, CEO David Zaslav said that Warner Bros. Discovery hopes subscribers will stick with the bundled offering to take advantage of lower prices and reduce customer churn, which it believes is a “killer” in the streaming industry.
This is only the second price escalate for the ad-free service since its launch. In early 2023, Max increased the price of the ad-free tier from $14.99 to $15.99 per month, which the company says is an escalate that will allow it to invest in content and user experience.
Prices are rising across the streaming world. Last month, Comcast NBCUniversal has increased its Peacock ad-supported and ad-free offering by $2 a month ahead of its broadcast of the Olympic Games later this summer. Last summer, Netflix has gotten rid of the cheapest basic ad-free option in the US and UK markets, offering instead a cheaper ad-supported option and more high-priced ad-free options.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.
