Max Appears Ready to Raise Streaming Prices for American Customers Starting This Month
Reports that Max was highly likely to raise its subscription costs first began to circulate in early May.
Max is just days away from the release of its second season of “House of the Dragon,” which is expected to drive huge numbers for the streaming service. Given that fact, and how opportunistic Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has proven to be, it’s hardly surprising that Max appears poised to roll out a price increase this month. Some customers have already received notice that their subscription rate is going up, and it’s essentially guaranteed that more Max subscribers will get news about their costs rising before the week is out.
Key Details:
- Viewers who receive their Max subscription through Verizon have been notified their price is increasing starting on their next bill.
- The increase affects Max’s ad-free plan and will see the cost rise by $1 per month to $16.99.
- A wider rollout of new prices is highly likely, though it’s unclear if ad-supported Max will also rise in price.
According to Max subscribers on Reddit, the streamer has raised the monthly subscription price for its ad-free plan to $16.99 per month for viewers who subscribe through the Verizon +play aggregation platform. Until now, Max has charged $15.99 per month for that plan across all points of purchase.
Photo courtesy of Reddit user jessebkr87.
Max is highly unlikely to raise subscription costs for such a small subset of customers, so I expect a wider rollout of price increases by the streamer very soon, probably before the week is out. Subscribers should keep an eye on their email inboxes because a notification about a price hike is almost certain to arrive soon.
Reports about a price increase for Max began to circulate in early May. At the time, I predicted that the cost of Max’s lower-cost ad-free plan would jump from $15.99 per month to $18.99, but it appears that the company isn’t raising rates quite that high.
Will All Max Plans Increase in Price?
There was no word as yet from Max subscribers on other plans as to whether their subscription costs were also rising with their next bill. The Streamable has reached out to Warner Bros. Discovery for comment and will update readers if/when we get a reply.
Although I predicted that all Max plans would increase in price this year, I’m ready to modify that forecast given the fact that Max’s ad-free plan is only rising in price by $1 per month. While I still think that the Ultimate plan will increase by more than $1 monthly, I no longer believe that Max will raise the cost of its $9.99-per-month ad-supported plan.
If Max doesn’t hike the price of its ad-supported plan, it will follow the strategy employed by Disney in its latest round of price increases. Last October, ad-free plans of Disney+ and Hulu both rose in cost, but the ad-supported tiers of both streamers stayed at the same rate. Such moves are a clear bid to get more viewers to opt for ad plans, which pay streaming providers more than ad-free plans do.
Max
Max is a subscription video streaming service that gives access to the full HBO library, along with exclusive Max Originals. There are hubs for content from TLC, HGTV, Food Network, Discovery, TCM, Cartoon Network, Travel Channel, ID, and more. Watch hit series like “The Last of Us,” “House of the Dragon,” “Succession,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” and more. Thanks to the B/R Sports add-on, users can watch NBA, MLB, NHL, March Madness, and NASCAR events.