The cost of Netflix has just gone up in the US again — and it's 'only a matter of time' before the rest of us are hit with more price rises

• Netflix has quietly announced another price hike across all of its tiers
• So far, only US customers appear to have been affected
• Outraged users have cancelled, or are threatening to cancel, their subscriptions

It's happening again, Netflix fans. The world's biggest streaming service has quietly announced yet another price increase — and, shocking no-one, infuriated fans have heavily criticized the move.

First spotted by Android Authority yesterday (March 26), the plans and pricing section of Netflix's Help Center website has been updated to confirm the cost of all three tiers has risen.

Right now, only US users are affected, so subscribers in the UK, Australia, and every other nation where Netflix is available are immune (for now, anyway). Nonetheless, US customers make up a sizable portion of Netflix's global userbase, so many stateside are going to be hit hard by the now-annual price mark-up.

If you're based in the US, here's how much you'll now have to pay every month for your Netflix subscription:

• Standard with ads — $8.99 (was $7.99)
• Standard (ad-free) — $19.99 (was $17.99)
• Premium (ad-free) — $26.99 (was $24.99)

That's not all, either. Netflix's Extra Member feature, which allows you to add someone — who doesn't live in the same household — to your account so they can also stream its vast library of content for an extra monthly fee, has also gone up. Now, it'll cost you (or, rather, them) $9.99 per month rather than $7.99 every 30 days.

It's unclear if the price increase took effect on March 26 or if Netflix has simply updated this page before officially announcing it. I've reached out to the streamer for comment and I'll update this article if I hear back.

How have Netflix users in the US reacted to the latest price hike?

It would be an understatement to say "not well". Indeed, a threads on forums like r/Netflix and ResetEra are full of comments from incredulous Netflix users about the price increase. Meanwhile, social media users have also lashed out at the entertainment behemoth over the move.

There's good reason for the outpouring of anger, too. As X/Twitter user Anish Moonka points out in the above post, the original idea for Netflix's ad-supported tier was to provide a money-saving alternative for anyone who couldn't afford one of its ad-free plans.

Comment from r/netflix

It can be argued that, at less than half the price of its cheapest ad-free experience, that's still the case.

However, in 2015, you could watch Netflix without ads for the same price that you now pay for an ad-supported subscription. With ads occasionally interrupting the movies, shows, and documentaries that you watch on the world's best streaming service, your viewing experience is worse today than it was over a decade ago.

Add in that ads generate billions of dollars of income for Netflix, and the fact that increased costs are still being passed onto consumers is infuriating.

Then there's the incredibly tone-deaf timing of this price hike. In a move that shocked the industry last December, Netflix announced it had agreed a $82.7 billion deal to acquire Warner Bros. However, just two months later, Netflix pulled out of the battle for Warner Bros. after its bid was trumped by Paramount Skydance's $111bn offer.

As part of the recently announced Paramount-Warner deal, a $2.8bn break-up fee was paid to Netflix — by Paramount, not Warner — due to the latter reneging on its initial pact with Netflix. Just one month after seeing its profit margins given a hefty bump by that multi-billion dollar termination fee, though, Netflix is charging consumers stateside even more for the privilege of using its service, so you can see why people are incensed.

It's only a matter of time before non-US users will be forced to pay more, too. In February 2025, UK fans saw price hikes across the board less than a month after users did in the US, Canada, Argentina, and Portugal (per the BBC). Don't be surprised, then, if the cost of Netflix rises where you live in the weeks and months to come.

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