Netflix subscribers received unwelcome news Thursday as the streaming giant quietly updated its website to reflect higher monthly rates across all three of its U.S. subscription plans — the second time in a little over a year the company has raised prices
The ad-supported Standard With Ads plan will now run subscribers $8.99 per month, a $1 jump from its previous price of $7.99. The mid-tier Standard plan, which offers ad-free viewing on up to two devices simultaneously, climbed by $2, moving from $17.99 to $19.99 per month. The top-tier Premium plan, which supports up to four concurrent streams along with Ultra HD and HDR video quality, rose from $24.99 to $26.99 per month.
The increases follow a similar move made earlier this year. The previous price hike was announced in January, and Netflix is now going up again. That January increase marked the first time in three years the company had raised the price on its Standard tier, historically its most popular plan.
For consumers keeping score, the math adds up quickly. Anyone who wants to avoid advertisements will now pay a minimum of $19.99 per month, and those seeking 4K content are looking at nearly $30 per month. Over the course of a year, that puts the Premium plan at over $320 — a significant outlay for a single streaming service at a time when most households juggle multiple subscriptions.
The back-to-back increases reflect what industry analysts describe as Netflix’s confidence in its own market position. The higher pricing signals that Netflix believes it has strong pricing power relative to rival streamers. While some customers may cancel in response to the higher fees, the company — the largest subscription streaming provider in the world — appears to be calculating that the increased revenue per subscriber will more than offset any resulting cancellations.
That confidence appears to be grounded in hard data. Netflix ended 2025 with $1.5 billion in ad revenue, which was two and a half times the revenue generated the year before. The company also reported that its audience is approaching one billion people globally, with over 325 million paid subscribers.
Looking ahead, the financial targets are ambitious. Netflix has forecast total annual revenue of between $50.7 billion and $51.7 billion for 2026, representing a 12% to 14% increase over the prior year. The company also projects an operating margin of 31.5% this year, up from 29.5% in 2025.
Netflix is not alone in pushing prices higher across the streaming landscape. Amazon also recently announced a price increase for Prime Video, though the company framed the change differently by adding benefits alongside the higher cost — replacing a subscriber-favorite tier with a rebranded plan that includes features such as 4K UHD clarity, more concurrent streaming devices, and improved offline downloads.
The price hikes come despite Netflix recently walking away from its massive $83 billion bid for Warner Bros. Discovery and receiving a nearly $3 billion breakup fee as a result of that collapsed deal. Any expectation among subscribers that those cost savings might translate into relief on their monthly bills appears to have been misplaced.
Analysts have pointed to Netflix’s strategy of combining tiered pricing with a broad content library — spanning original series, films, games, and live events — as a key factor in limiting subscriber churn even as prices rise. The availability of lower-cost tiers gives customers the option to trade down rather than cancel outright, which has helped stabilize the company’s retention numbers.
For now, the new prices are live and in effect. Subscribers who log into Netflix’s website will see the updated pricing reflected across all plan descriptions. Those on existing plans may want to check their billing cycles to see when the higher rates will begin applying to their accounts.
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