Disney+ adding lower cost, ad supported plan later this year

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Disney+ will be adding a lower priced ad supported plan later in 2022.

The streamer, which is currently priced at $7.99 per month, had nearly 130 million paid subscriptions worldwide as of January 2022, which puts it behind Netflix’s nearly 222 million reported at the end of 2021.

Amazon Prime Video had an estimated 200 million subscribers view its content, though it’s part of a larger subscription offering that includes other benefits such as free expedited shipping, so its revenue can’t be broken down as precisely.

Disney+ hopes to reach 230 million to 260 million subscriptions by the end of fiscal 2024 and sees a lower price tier as key to that expansion.

The company has not announced a launch date or pricing strategy.

Disney executives have already hinted that it might be mulling a price hike for its ad free service in the fall of 2022, so it’s possible the company could boost that plan’s cost and then offer an ad supported plan for around what it charges for the current offering, which could be a way to reduce churn and keep users signed up who don’t want to pay more per month and perhaps don’t mind watching some ads in exchange.

Disney+ launched at $6.99 a month and has only increased its price once since launching in 2019.

Most ad free streaming services are about $2 to $5 more per month than ad supported ones.

HBO Max, which has over 43 million paid and wholesale members (such as those who get it free with AT&T wireless plans), rolled out a lower price ad supported plan in 2021. Paramount+ and Discovery+ also offer lower priced tiers with ads. Peacock offers a completely free tier as well as two levels about that, the lower priced of which features ads.

Netflix has increased streaming prices multiple times over the course of its life and still has one of the larger content libraries out there, including numerous original series that can’t be found elsewhere, a common feature of streamers.

It currently sits at $15.49 a month if you want to be able to stream on more than one device with HD quality video, which are comparable features to the current Disney+ plan (though their content libraries are substantially different).