Disney Plus subscriptions get an up to 25% price hike

Disney Plus is getting a significant price hike in the US, and some other countries may not be too far behind.

The monthly cost of Disney Plus will rise from $13.99 to $15.99 for the full ad-free service, and from $7.99 to $9.99 for the ad-supported tier.

These changes come into effect on October 17. And the price rises don’t just affect Disney+.

Hulu will get bumped from $7.99 to $9.99 for the ad-supported service, and the full-whack version sees a $1 rise to $18.99 a month.

ESPN+’s cost also jumps a dollar to $11.99 a month.

There’s no word of a similar rise elsewhere just yet, but we’re far from ruling it out. Disney applied price rises a year ago, and they affected both the US and UK.

This was when Disney introduces its ad-supported service, and bumped the top UK price from £7.99 a month to £10.99 a month.

Streaming sure has gotten a lot more costly over the past few years.

There is a way for US streaming fans to take some of the sting out of this latest bump. Hulu and Disney Plus can be bundled together for $16.99 with ads, or $29.99 for the subscription without ads.

These bundles aren’t available for UK subscribers, which may give Disney pause about increasing prices in the UK right away. But that’s just a speculative hope.

The mild sweetener for these bitter price hikes is a new Disney Plus feature called Playlists.

This effectively turns Disney content into an old-school TV channel, or a “lean-back viewing experience based on seasonality and interest,” according to a Disney statement.

Back in 2019 when Disney Plus launched, it cost $6.99 a month. It arrived in the UK in 2020, and cost £5.99 a month.

For a similar no-compromise service you’ll now pay up to more than double: 2.28 times the amount.

Disney also began a crackdown on account sharing in June 2024, although we haven’t heard reports suggesting its quite as aggressive as Netflix's 2023 crackdown. Not yet anyway.

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