During Disney’s recent earnings call, it was announced that the price of Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN+ will be going up.
Disney+ Premium goes up by $3 to $13.99 a month. Hulu without ads will also increase by $3 to $17.99. ESPN+ rises by $1 to $10.99 a month. It’s also going to crack down on password sharing next year. You will also see a price hike on Hulu + Live TV to $76.99 a month. If you don’t want ads with your Hulu and Hulu+ Live TV bundle, that will cost you $89.99 a year.
Disney also launched a new Disney+ Premium bundle that offers Hulu and Disney+ with no ads for $19.99 a month.
The changes come after Disney reported results that showed continued operating losses for its streaming services. In total, Disney posted a fiscal third-quarter net loss of $460 million, or 25 cents a share, compared with a year-earlier profit of $1.41 billion, or 77 cents a share. Revenue rose to $22.3 billion vs. $21.5 billion a year ago. Excluding one-time items, per-share earnings were $1.03 a share.
The company and CEO Bob Iger, has vowed to bring the business to profitability by the end of fiscal 2024. This week it was reported that Disney hopes to be profitable by September 2024.
As with all price hikes, the new price won’t take effect until your next bill. So if you are locked in with a yearly plan, you can keep your current price until your next renewal. So if you have a service you know you want to use all year, having an annual plan is a great way to lock in your price. So if you can, check into switching to yearly to help avoid this price hike.
Currently, Disney+’s annual plan is $109.99 a year for the ad-free plan. If you can, switching over to that will help you save money.
Parramount+ currently charges $119.99 a year for its ad-free with Showtime plans.
Max currently charges $149.99 a year for its ad-free plans, a savings of over 20%.
Peacock currently charges $119.99 a year for the ad-free plan, a 17% savings vs paying monthly.
STARZ also recently announced that it will be cutting the cost of its annual subscription down to $69.99 a year.