Breaking: Crunchyroll Announces First Price Increase Since 2019; Are All Tiers Rising in Cost?
The anime streaming platform has worked diligently to improve its interface for users, and now its seeking to enhance its revenues.
Crunchyroll gave viewers the carrot before the stick. In mid-March, the anime-centric streamer unveiled a lineup of more than 40 new shows and movies that would launch on its platform over the spring months. That was the carrot, and now the stick has come in the form of a price hike for certain subscribers. Crunchyroll is raising prices for two of its plans starting immediately for customers in select countries, including the United States.
Key Facts:
- The Crunchyroll Megafan subscription level is rising by $2 per month, and the Ultimate Fan tier is increasing by $1 monthly.
- In addition, Crunchyroll is reducing its free trial length from 14 days to seven.
- Pricing for the Fan level of subscription remains unchanged for now.
This is the first time that Crunchyroll has raised its prices since launching in 2019. The Sony-owned streamer has introduced new subscription tiers and benefits since then, but the price for each plan has remained consistent since Crunchyroll first launched. In addition to the pricing changes, Crunchyroll is reducing the length of its free trial from 14 days to seven.
The price of Cruncyroll’s Megafan subscription is increasing from $9.99 per month to $11.99. This plan allows viewers to take 10% off when shopping at the Crunchyroll store, to download shows and movies for offline viewing, and to watch on up to four simultaneous devices.
The Ultimate Fan plan is jumping from $14.99 per month to $15.99. It bumps the discount at the Crunchyroll store to 15% and increases the number of simultaneous streams to six. Ultimate Fans also get an exclusive “swag bag” of merchandise from Crunchyroll after they’ve been subscribed for 12 months.
The change will impact pricing in Argentina, Colombia, France, Portugal, the United States, and select additional countries. Crunchyroll’s cheapest plan is the $7.99-per-month Fan tier, and this is the only plan that will not see a price increase in the U.S. The ad-supported free streaming option from Crunchyroll that offers more than 1,000 hours of content is also remaining unchanged.
What Upgrades Has Crunchyroll Made Recently?
The biggest update that Crunchyroll has rolled out for customers of late is the ability to create multiple profiles. Crunchyroll first made this feature available to customers at the start of April, and pledged to roll it out widely to all of its subscribers by the month’s end.
Crunchyroll has 13 million global customers, though its president sees a total addressable market of more than 800 million potential subscribers worldwide. According to a recent survey from Polygon, 42% of Gen Z audiences and 25% of millennials watch anime at least once a week.
As a niche streaming service with a narrow content focus, it becomes even more difficult for Crunchyroll to build scale and pull in meaningful streaming profits as opposed to bigger platforms like Prime Video and Disney+. That’s one big reason the company is executing this modest price increase and has done so during the same week that NBCUniversal’s streamer Peacock announced a price hike of its own.
Crunchyroll
Crunchyroll is a subscription video streaming service catering to fans of anime with over 30,000 episodes. Viewers can see new episodes of shows one hour after they air in Japan, and read hundreds of chapters across dozens of manga titles. Some of their more popular titles are Dragon Ball Super, Attack on Titan, and Fire Force.