Plex launches 5-year pass for $250
Plex launches 5-year pass for $250
The new Plex Pass subscription option prices in at the same rate the company formerly charged for its lifetime Pass.
Plex has made plenty of headlines this summer, and most of them have been to the dismay of prospective subscribers. The latest news from the media server and streaming service might not remedy all of the disappointment, but it might calm some of the frustration stemming from its most recent price hike. Plex has launched a new, five-year Plex Pass subscription option for the same cost it charged for a lifetime plan just a few months ago.
Key Details:
- New option: A new, five-year Plex Pass is now available.
- Kick in the teeth: The plan costs $250, the same price as the old Plex Pass lifetime subscription.
- Lots of features: A Plex Pass allows users to exercise a huge amount of control over their personal media.
The new five-year Plex Pass billing option costs $250, breaking down to $50 per year. The service’s annual plan costs $70, so opting for a five-year subscription will save subscribers $20 per year over the term, adding up to $100 in savings.
That may seem like a good enough deal, but prospective Plex customers will no doubt remember that, until recently, the service offered a lifetime Plex Pass for the same price. In late May, Plex announced it was raising the price of a lifetime Plex Pass by a whopping $500, from $250 to $750.
The eye-popping price jump of a lifetime Plex Pass is just another example of Streamflation, which continues more or less unabated. Recently, two top live TV streaming services also rolled out price increases: DIRECTV raised rates of several Genre Packs in late June, and Fubo rolled out new prices last week, after restoring NBCUniversal channels to its airwaves after a lengthy contract dispute.
However, unlike those live TV streaming services, the Plex Pass is not a streamer in a traditional sense. A Plex Pass is specifically useful for anyone with a large personal media collection. Viewers can upload their content for remote streaming from anywhere, skip opening and closing credits, make use of Plex’s hardware transcoding abilities, and even hook up a tuner to their Plex server to watch over-the-air TV. The Plex free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) service remains available to everyone free of charge.
To be sure, Plex offering more subscription options is a good thing in general. But the company’s five-year plan is yet another example of how the prices for everything in the streaming industry continue to rise, potentially pricing out consumers who cut the cord thinking it would be a way to save money on entertainment.
Plex
Plex is a free streaming service that includes on-demand access to 50,000+ movies and TV shows. The service also offers 1,100+ free-to-stream live TV channels in 193 countries. Users can also connect Plex to their computers to stream and share any media they have on their hard drives.