Netflix Price Hikes Goes Into Effect In May For Existing Customers

Back in January, Netflix announced that it would be raising prices across the board in an effort to help fund its original programming and other content costs. At the time, Netflix revealed that new subscribers to the service would see the price increases immediately, while existing customers would see their rates increase over the next few months.

Well, that time has come, and starting with the May billing cycle, long-time Netflix customers will see an increase to their monthly bills. As previously reported, the basic streaming plan is increasing from $8/month to $9/month, while the HD streaming plan support up to two connections sees the biggest increase, going from $11/month to $13 month. Finally, the 4K UHD plan is increasing from $14/month to $16/month.

Netflix subscribers are generally incredibly loyal to the service and have introduced vernacular like “Netflix and Chill” into our vocabulary. So, it’s likely that many will just absorb the price increases to maintain access to popular original programming like Stranger Things, The Crown, and Roma.

However, it should be noted that rival Hulu has been making inroads with budget-conscious cord cutters. Back in January, Hulu announced that it was dropping the price of its basic ad-supported service to $5.99/month. More recently, the company announced a new bundle plan that gets you ad-supported Hulu along with Spotify Premium for a just $9.99, which is an incredible bargain.

The battle in the video streaming arena is about to get even more fierce, as entrenched players like Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and Hulu will face pressure from an upcoming Disney-backed streaming service. In addition, Apple TV+ is set to launch this fall with its own original programming to vie for recurring lucrative revenue from customers.