Amazon joins flood of streaming service price hikes for 2024
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Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
Consumers will be feeling the impact of streaming services' price increases in 2024, as nearly every major streamer has bumped up their subscription fees.
Why it matters: The price hikes are part of media companies' push to recoup their investments on the expensive and largely unprofitable pivot to streaming.
- The increases will likely push consumers to cheaper ad-supported plans, which brings in more revenue per person, appeasing investors.
Driving the news: Amazon Prime Video will charge an extra $2.99 per month for an ad-free version, the company announced Wednesday, as it releases commercials across its video platform for the first time.
- The increase will apply to subscribers to the standalone version of Prime Video ($8.99 per month) and to the cost of an Amazon Prime membership ($14.99 per month or $139 per year).
State of play: Amazon is only the latest subscription price hike announced in 2023 as streamers address Wall Street's increasing discontent with streamers' mounting losses.
- Max announced in January a $1 hike to its ad-free plan to $15.99. The ad-supported tier of Warner Bros. Discovery's service stayed at $9.99 per month.
- Netflix stopped offering its cheapest ad-free plan at $9.99 per month in July, pushing new and returning subscribers to its ad-supported plan at $6.99 per month.
- Peacock bumped its monthly cost up $1 to $5.99 and its ad-free version up $2 to $11.99 starting in August — the first price increase for NBCUniversal's streamer since its 2020 debut.
- Disney increased prices across its services in October. The ad-free tier for Disney+ jumped by $3 to $13.99 per month. Hulu without ads jumped $3 to $17.99 per month. The price of an ESPN+ monthly plan rose by $1 to $10.99.
What we're watching: Media companies also have been cracking down on password sharing. Netflix started informing customers of the new policy in May, and Disney began enforcing a similar policy in Canada in November.
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