In a letter to shareholders, Netflix gloated about a whole bunch of positive metrics as outlined in its fourth quarter for 2024, including record growth to the number of paid subscribers—Netflix added 19 million new subscribers, marking "the biggest quarter of net adds in our history." To put that figure into context, Netflix added 5 million new subscribers in the previous quarter. Even so, subscriptions rates are going up (
again).
They're not massive increases, but it's yet another round of price hikes as the cost of cutting the cord becomes increasingly expensive. And it's every tier that is going up in price. For those on the Standard plan with ads, the rate is increasing from $6.99 to $7.99 per month (14.3%). Meanwhile, the ad-free Standard plan is going up from $15.49 to $17.99 per month (16.14%), while the flagship Premium plans is jumping up a couple of bucks from $22.99 t9 $24.99 per month. Those represents increase of 14.3% (Standard with ads), 16.14% (Standard, no ads), and 8.7% (Premium).
Additionally, the cost to share a password with someone outside of the home is increasing from $7.99/month to $8.99/month on both the Standard and Premium plans. There's also a new option that allows users on the Standard (no ads) plan to add an extra member (with ads) for $6.99 per month. Likewise, Premium subscribers can pay an extra $6.99 per month to add up to two extra members access to their account, albeit with ads.
"As we continue to invest in programming and deliver more value for our members, we will occasionally
ask our members to pay a little more so that we can re-invest to further improve Netflix. To that end, we
are adjusting prices today across most plans in the US, Canada, Portugal and Argentina (which was
already factored into the 2025 guidance we provided in October 2024)," Netflix wrote in its letter.
Some may argue against the "occasionally" qualifier as well as the "little more" statement when looked at from a broader view. In the above post on X/Twitter, Reid Southen, a film concept artist and illustrator who worked on several Marvel movies, highlights Netflix's price hikes dating back over a decade. For example, a Standard plan (no ads) in 2013 ran $9.99 per month while the Premium tier was priced at $11.99 per month. By 2020, they had risen to $14.99/month and $19.99/month, respectively.
To be fair, the service has improved since its early days with a lot more content (including some excellent original programming like "Stranger Things," "Ozark," and more) and 4K streams on the Premium tier. But there's also plenty of...let's just say
not so great content filling up Netflix's catalog as well. There's also been an industry-wide
crackdown on password sharing, and the live event with Mike Tyson versus Jake Paul on Netflix was a streaming disaster on the consumer end, due to frequent buffering and low quality feeds.
While prices are going up, so is Netflix's bottom end. It's Q4 revenue grew 16% year-over-year to $10.25 billion, slightly outpacing Netflix's forecast, while net income (profit, basically) settling in at $1.87 billion for the quarter. And looking ahead, Netflix adjusted its 2025 revenue forecast upwards by a half a billion dollar, saying it now expects to rake in between $43.5-$44.5 billion.
"This updated guidance reflects improved business fundamentals and the
expected carryover benefit of our stronger-than-forecasted Q4’24 performance, net of headwinds from
the strengthening of the US dollar over the past few months," Netflix stated in its
letter to shareholders (PDF).
So yes, your streaming plan is going up in price (again), but doesn't the strong revenue and guidance give you warm fuzzies?