Documentary Service Curiosity Stream Announces Price Increase; Annual Plan Cost Doubles
Documentary Service Curiosity Stream Announces Price Increase; Annual Plan Cost Doubles
If you didn’t take advantage of the deal that Curiosity Stream was offering on its lifetime subscription a few weeks ago, you might be kicking yourself now.
That’s because the price of a monthly subscription to the documentary film-focused service is going up. In its fourth quarter 2022 earnings report, released late last week, Curiosity Stream announced it was increasing the monthly rate of its Standard plan from $2.99 to $4.99. The annual plan is doubling in price, jumping from $19.99 to $39.99. The Smart Bundle plan, which offers access to Da Vinci Kids, Tastemade, and more, will remain at $9.99 per month or $69.99 per year.
“We had long maintained our pricing despite the significant investments we have made to expand our content library and improve the user experience,” company president and CEO Clint Stinchcomb said. “We believe our new price points continue to represent exceptional value relative to other subscription services available in the market.”
Curiosity Stream did not provide specific subscriber numbers in the report, but it did note 32% year-over-year growth in its Smart Bundle tier. Despite that positive fact, the announcement also showed a net loss of $14.5 million for the company, which may go a long way toward explaining why Curiosity Stream is feeling the need to increase subscription rates.
It’s not as if customers haven’t had time to plan for this price hike. Company executives first signaled such an increase was coming over a year ago. At the time, Stinchcomb said “Even if our most popular annual plan pricing were to increase to $30 per year, it would still represent tremendous value.”
That value has taken a bit more of a hit than planned since the price ended up rising to $39.99 for the annual plan. Still, Curiosity Stream is less expensive than other documentary film streamers like MagellanTV ($6.99 per month), or the niche arthouse movie service Mubi ($10.99 per month). Curiosity Stream users also get access to a wide array of original programming, including titles like “Cracking the Code,” “Planet Insect,” “Trackers’ Diary: Bears of Katmai,” and much more.
Curiosity Stream
Curiosity Stream is a subscription streaming service that offers 1,800+ documentaries and series on science, space, technology, nature, history, health, and more. The service was created by the Discovery Channel founder, John Hendricks, in 2015.