Disney announced this week the next round of price increases for its various streaming services. In an effort to turn Disney+ profitable, Disney will introduce a 27% price hike beginning in October. Hulu, Disney's other streaming platform, will also be getting a 20% price increase. Both of these increases will only apply to the ad-free plans for each service.
The prices are slated to increase on October 12, 2023. Here's what the updated pricing for Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ will look like:
Disney+
- With Ads (No Price Change): $7.99/month
- No Ads: $13.99/month or 139.99/year
Hulu
- With Ads (No Price Change): $7.99/month or $79.99/year
- No Ads: $17.99/month
- Disney+ (With Ads) Add-On (No Change): $2.00/month
- ESPN+ on Hulu Ad-On: $10.99
ESPN+
- With Ads: $10.99/month or $109.99/year
- UFC PPV (standalone) (No Change): $79.99/per event
- UFC PPV + Annual: $134.98
Bundles
- *NEW* Duo Premium: Disney+ (No Ads), Hulu (No Ads): $19.99/month
- Duo Basic: Disney+ (With Ads), Hulu (With Ads) (No Change): $9.99/month
- Trio Premium: Disney+ (No Ads), Hulu (No Ads), ESPN+ (With Ads): $24.99/month
- Trio Basic: Disney+ (With Ads), Hulu (With Ads), ESPN+ (With Ads): $14.99/month
Hulu + Live TV
- With Ads: $76.99
- No Ads: $89.99
You'll notice there is a new Duo Premium bundle option being added. This will combine the ad-free versions of both Disney+ and Hulu into a single bundle for $19.99, which is actually a pretty fair deal when considering how much each service will cost individually without ads. Rather than paying $13.99 for Disney+ and another $17.99 for Hulu on their own -- a combined cost of $32 -- you can subscribe to this Duo Premium bundle and get them both for $20 total, or just $10 each. Of course, an even cheaper option would be to go with the Duo Basic bundle, which is both services with ads for just $9.99 a month.
The price increases for the ad-free versions come at a time when Disney is facing mounting pressure from investors to turn Disney+ profitable. For the latest quarter, Disney's Direct-to-Consumer segment saw its operating loss decrease to $0.5 billion from a loss of $1.1 billion. Disney attributed the decrease to a lower loss at Disney+ and higher operating income at Hulu.
This is the second price hike for Disney+ in as many years. The service, which launched in 2019, as seen its price nearly double from $6.99 per month to $13.99 per month. The new cost is more in line with what Netflix and other competitors charge, but it will be interesting to see how it impacts the number of subscribers.