One of the best bargains in streaming is–you guessed it–getting a price hike.
Warner Bros. Discovery just announced that the ad-free version of Discovery+ will now cost $8.99 a month in the US, up from $6.99/month, while the price in Canada will go up a similar $2/month CAD to $8.99/month CAD. That’s a fairly hefty 27-percent increase for both countries.
Meanwhile, the ad-supported version of Discovery+ in the US will stay at $4.99 a month for now, but “ad-lite” Discovery+ subscribers in Canada will see their rates go up to $5.99 CAD a month, a $1 CAD increase.
The price increase will go into effect immediately for new customers, while existing users will start paying extra at the beginning of their next billing cycle.
In a press release announcing the price hike, Warner Bros. Discovery noted that today’s price hike is the first for Discovery+ since January 2021, and that the price increase will “allow us to provide can’t-miss-stories” in a variety of genres.
The move marks yet another price increase for a video streaming service, Disney+ and Hulu, for example, will be raising their prices later this month, while Peacock upped its prices earlier this year.
There’s also chatter that Netflix is about to raise its own prices, just three months after a top Netflix exec pledged that price hikes for the service were “more than a year out.”
Much of Discovery+’s programming is now incorporated into Max, which rebranded itself from “HBO Max” back in May.
The original plan was for the new Max to gobble up Discovery+ completely, but Warner Bros. Discovery execs eventually had a change of heart, figuring it would be better to keep Discovery+ as a cheaper standalone option for budget-conscious streamers.
As it stands, the least expensive Max subscription is its $9.99/month “ad-lite” tier, while ad-free Max starts at $15.99 a month. There’s also a $19.99 Max Ultimate Ad Free Tier, which incorporates some of the features (such as 4K video resolution, Dolby Atmos audio, and offline downloads) that used to be available for $15.99 under the old HBO Max pricing structure.
With the new price hike, however, standalone Discovery+ without ads isn’t quite as affordable anymore, and with Canada getting an additional price increase for the ad-supported Discovery+, it’s only a matter of time before that tier gets a price boost in the U.S., too.
