Max Is Raising Prices, Effective Immediately — How Much It’ll Cost to Stream Without Ads
Max is about to cost you even more.
Effective Tuesday, June 4, Warner Bros. Discovery is raising the price of Max’s Ad-Free plan by $1 per month, making the new price $16.99/month. (The yearly Ad-Free plan will increase by $20 per year, making it $169.99/year.)
Additionally, the price of Max’s Ultimate Ad-Free plan (which allows subscribers to stream on four devices at once in 4K Ultra HD with Dolby Atmos immersive audio) will increase by $1 per month, making the new price $20.99/month. (The yearly Ultimate Ad-Free plan will increase by $10 per year, making it $209.99/year.)
The Max With Ads plan remains unchanged, at $9.99/month (or $99.99/year).
The price increases come two weeks ahead of House of the Dragon’s Season 2 launch. The Game of Thrones spinoff’s eight-episode sophomore run premieres Sunday, June 16, at 9/8c on HBO and Max. You can find a full list of Max’s June 2024 releases here.
What a surprise…said no one ever
I wouldn’t pay half that for that crappy service! :)
the whole point was to battle cable, now they are worst.
but we are the problem because we are continuing to pay their prices. At this point it is ridiculous.
Bingo.
It’s hilarious how streaming services are turning into the very thing they claimed was overpriced. Cable TV.
Exactly.
Still less expensive than cable, but with the added benefit of knowing that not a single dime of my money is going towards an unsolicited add-on like Fox News.
I feel that way about MSNBC and CNN. Both cable channels night time television IMO, is horribly divisive.
I have been watching NewsNation, but that has been pretty hit or miss. Sometimes it is watchable, other times it is not. They spend far too much time during their night time programming on crime stories. That is especially true of Banfield. Her ratings are horrible.
I can’t stand this new trend of streamers trying to make the ad versions more enticing by raising the prices on the ad-free plans. It seems like advertising on streamers is now more profitable than before that they rather have more people view ads. I’ve paid since the beginning of many of these streamers for no ads, because i prefer to just moving past ads, yet they continue to try and punish account holders like myself. I prefer the days when they just push more ads on the ad plans to convince people to move to ad-free.
So I’m assuming I can’t share it with my parents, even with the ultimate package? I’ve never shared a subscription, but the cost is getting too high. I’m giving up Netflix, so I guess Max can go.
I don’t need to see House of the Dragon that badly. I mean, it’s not a big price hike, but these slight price hikes are becoming more and more common.
House of the Dragon Season 1 was boring and pointless. Even as a diehard GoT fan, I wouldn’t miss it if never got around to watching it again.
House of the dragon played for no ads on the ad tier for season 1. Just fyi
That’s what piracy is for
Cable and satellite are getting relatively cheaper by the month.
Cable (with internet) is $200/month in my area. I pay $430 for the entire year for 6 streaming services.
Since you need internet in order to stream, it would be a more accurate comparison if you include your internet bill per year in addition to the $430 you pay for streaming.
But it’s not more accurate.
Internet connectivity is now basically a utility for a household.
We don’t include electricity bills when factoring our streaming costs despite needing electricity to one degree or another when streaming.
Lol but it would be more accurate. It is a prerequisite to be able to stream. You don’t need internet for cable or satellite TV. Including electricity bill is pointless and not needed for comparison because cable and satellite require it as well…
So, she should subtract internet from her cable quote, which would make her bill ~$120/month or $1440/year. That’s over 3X her annual cost of streaming.
I need the Internet for my work so I have to have it. Cable with Internet is $2400/year in my area. Six streaming services with intenet is $1270/year for me and two of those streaming services offer free two day shipping.
Hopefully they have another deal when mine is due to renew like they just had where you could get Ultimate Ad-Free for a year at $139.99 even for existing subscribers. That was less than the normal ad-free annual rate.
Is Emma D’Arcy’s facial expression in the photo a direct response to the headline?
I have regular HBO through Spectrum so I get HBO MAX As well..
I agree with most of the responses streaming has become the very thing they were trying to get away from and that was cable TV. Every time you turn around there’s an increase, especially if you want ad free..
We also get Paramount+ from Spectrum in addition to HBO Max.
Thank you, I’ll have to check to see if I’m eligible for Paramount+.
I just received a text from Spectrum saying that my plan now includes Disney+ basic in my cable package.
+1 dollar per month or +20 dollars per year?! Someone should tell the geniuses at HBO Max that there are only 12 months in a year…
Not defending the price hike, but just saying that I assume they’re just making both plans as pay for 10 months, get 2 months for free if you pay all at once.
Consumers are so gullible…
I really believe that as they continue to raise prices they will eventually lose customers. I know that I used to have about 5, now I have just 2. It will take time, but some will fold.
They’re offering significantly less content, too. I mean, if you want to watch Dr. Pimple Popper, you’ll be fine, but all of they’ve cancelled or ended over half their scripted content.
Its a pirates life for me! =D
This is the way
“DontStreamOnMax” has been trending these last two days. That was before this. This feels like their “response.” WB’s complete inability to read the room continues to astound me.
The rate hike has been in the works for awhile…
EXACTLY! This is impeccable timing; really. Max couldn’t look worse lol
Plenty to watch on the free streaming services. I won’t be paying for anymore streaming services. In fact, if Peacock and Paramount+ don’t start bringing back some of their shows that have been on hiatus, I am more likely than not going to cancel both services.
Where is the new season of Poker Face? How about Canada’s version of Traitors?
Is Big Brother coming back? I haven’t heard squat about that either.
I haven’t watched either service in a couple of months. If nothing shows up by July, I am done with them both.
Kinda annoying when your family doesn’t even watch House of the Dragon. (I tried season one. I didn’t feel like it captured the book very well, even allowing for it to, like, not being told in flashback/”storytelling” style. I didn’t expect that, but I wish they’d had a bit of that historical fiction feel to it. Instead they went for water cooler shock value at *every* turn…again. Sigh.)
Not the time for streaming services to increase their rates. People are leaving due to costs on other services and this newbie thinks it should happen?
I left once word got out about the content purge, and all the news since ensures that I’ll never be back as an ongoing subscriber. If they manage to become the services with a truly must-watch, I’ll join for a month when it’s about to conclude, binge, and go. But I’m not holding my breath
Keep it up Parent Corporations of all the Hollywood Studios… you keep buying up the streaming services like you guys did all the cable companies decades ago — and so you’re shoving ads everywhere in the ad-free streaming platforms, hiking prices like crazy, and bundling everything so that we’re no longer able to get what we want a la carte… *^ You are turning the Streaming Industry into the Archiac Cable Industry. **
Go ahead.. price yourselves out of the market… it’s what you have always done best!