Netflix just got more expensive, prices of most popular plan, premium tier raised

Netflix just made its plans more expensive for its US subscribers by raising the price of its most popular plan to $14 and the premium tier to $18. The basic plan though remained at $9/month.

A price hike at Netflix was long-anticipated since the last time the platform had increased its fees in the US was in January 2019. (Pixabay)

Netflix just raised prices for its US subscribers and bumped up the standard plan to $14/month and the premium plan to $18/month. The basic plan though remains priced at $9.

The new price for the standard plan is a $1 increase from the previous $13/month and the premium plan now costs $2 more from the $16/month.

New subscribers will have to pay the updated fees and the current subscribers will see the new prices reflect over the new few weeks as they roll out with billing cycles, The Verge reported.

A price hike at Netflix was long-anticipated since the last time the platform had increased its fees in the US was in January 2019. Netflix also increased the costs of some of its plans in Canada recently. Netflix usually rolls out its price changes on a country-by-country basis and a Netflix spokesperson told The Verge that price changes in the US do not influence or indicate price changes globally.

This price hike in the US has come in at a time when people have a host of entertainment options, especially in the US. Till a few years ago, Netlfix's only competition was Hulu and the company was vying for people's attention that was divided between, YouTube, video games and sleeping. Now, the US has HBO Max, Disney+, Peacock, TikTok, YouTube and Fortnite and perhaps sleep too. 

And Netflix is aware of this but it is raising prices so that they can continue to offer more variety of shows and films, the spokesperson said adding that they always offer a bunch of plans so as users can pick one that fits their budget.

This price hike is also happening at a time when Netflix is looking to invest in on content and product features more heavily. Netflix has reportedly increased its content budget every single year over the last seven years and increased competition only means that Netflix needs to continuously step-up its game to ensure that it has both quality and quantity of content while it also works on bettering the platform itself. And that means price revisions like this one.