AMC’s Horror Movie Streamer Shudder Raising Monthly, Annual Subscription Price Starting in August
This isn’t the kind of horror that Shudder fans signed up for! The AMC-owned streaming platform is scaring up a price increase for both new and existing subscribers. Starting Aug. 29, 2023, Shudder will increase its base subscription cost from $5.99 per month to $6.99.
The cost of an annual Shudder plan is also rising, going from $56.99 per year to $71.88. If you want to sign up for Shudder for a whole year at the lower price point, you have until Aug. 29 to sign up and secure your lower rate for 12 whole months. Existing Shudder users will see the changes reflected in their next bill after Aug. 28.
Price jumps are never a cakewalk for consumers, but they are a crucial part of the streaming formula nowadays. Increasing subscription costs is one way for streaming owners to more effectively monetize their users, which is a key step in achieving profitability, a goal every streamer except Netflix (which already posts regular profits) is chasing.
AMC owns several streaming services, though much of the content from Acorn TV, Shudder, and Sundance Now is available through the company’s flagship platform AMC+; titles on ALLBLK are primarily reserved for that platform. The company maintains a relatively small customer base distributed through these services, which has long caused speculation that AMC might take further steps toward consolidating them all into a single service.
To start, the company is considering ways to allow customers to “self-bundle” its services, perhaps at a lower price point. Doing so could aid AMC in its goal to help its streamers turn a profit, as it would help the company cut down on back-end maintenance costs that are redundant in the current structure.
Another page in the profitability playbook that AMC has clearly read is the introduction of an ad-supported plan. Plans with ads help streamers collect money from users twice; once when they pay their subscription costs, and again when advertisers pay to have their ads shown to subscribers while they’re using the platform. AMC announced it would make an ad-supported tier available sometime before October at its upfronts presentation this spring.
A $1 monthly price increase is also the tactic that Peacock’s ad-supported tier recently used to try and double down on its own streaming successes; the NBCUniversal streamer’s ad-free plan saw a $2 per month increase. Every streamer has discovered the formula for peaking losses and attempting to rise to profitability: remove lower-performing content, monetize users with ads and price increases, and consolidate as much as possible. AMC is clearly following this track, but it remains to be seen if its 11.5 million streaming customers are enough to build a profitable platform.
Shudder offers thousands of licensed horror titles, and also includes original films and series, and even features some of the finest (and flat-out worst) drive-in horror flicks in “The Last Drive-in with Joe Bob Briggs.” It’s got something for every horror fan to try out during its seven-day free trial.
Shudder
Shudder is a streaming video service specializing in horror, thriller and supernatural fiction titles. The service has a vast library of both classic and contemporary films as well as new, original programming such as Wolf Creek, and Slaxx. Shudder also benefits from content courtesy of AMC including Eli Roth’s History of Horror and fan-favorite zombie survival series The Walking Dead. The platform is available to users in the U.S., Canada, the UK, New Zealand, Australia, and Ireland.