To increase profitability, Disney Plus has announced price hikes and password-sharing crackdowns this week, with the latter scheduled to start in September 2024.
Disney Plus is launching a new wave of price hikes this year and they’re set to go off on October 17th. The same goes for its affiliated streaming platforms, ESPN and Hulu. The pricing for each of the monthly, and annual plans are all getting markups according to The Verge. On a side note, during Disney’s annual earnings call, CEO Bob Iger laid down plans to start password sharting crackdowns on a global level after the beginning rollout in June was deemed successful.
The last Disney Plus price hikes were deployed in October 2023, a year before these will start to go into effect. Below are the streaming services under the Disney Plus banner, and their new pricing will be effective on October 17. It’s worth noting that Disney wants consumers to shift to the ad-based tiers considering there’s over a 50% increase between the ad-tier and the ad-free tiers.
| Subscription Type | Monthly Price | Annual Price |
| Disney+ With Ads Disney+ Without Ads | $9.99 $15.99 | Not Available $159.99 |
| Hulu With Ads Hulu Without Ads | $9.99 $18.99 | $99.99 Not Available |
| ESPN+ With Ads | $11.99 | $119.99 |
| Disney+ & Hulu With Ads Disney+ & Hulu Without Ads | $10.99 $19.99 | Not Available Not Available |
Regarding password sharing, CEO Bob Iger said “We’ve been talking a lot about adding the technology features that we need to basically make it a higher return, higher margin business, and a more successful business. And we’re doing that right now,” and referred to the previous June 2024 rollout of password crackdowns as a success. He mentioned the global launch of password sharing will begin “in earnest” in September.
Disney Plus and other streaming services offered by Disney will face price increases on October 17, and the service will institute a password-sharing crackdown sometime in Spetember beforehand, so subscribers should take note of when these things happen.
