Disney to raise price on ad-free Disney+ to $13.99 per month starting October 12

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Disney is raising prices on almost all of its streaming offerings as it looks to accelerate profitability for the business. Commercial-free Disney+ will cost $13.99 per month, a 27% increase, beginning Oct. 12. Disney+ with ads will remain $7.99 per month. Disney will also expand its ad-tier offering to select markets in Europe and in Canada beginning Nov. 1. Disney is increasing the price of Hulu without ads to $17.99 per month, a 20% price hike. Hulu with ads will also stay the same price, at $7.99 per month. For comparison, Netflix's standard plan without commercials is $15.49 per month. Warner Bros. Discovery's Max is $15.99 per month. The decision to price Disney+ nearly as high as commercial-free Netflix and Max, and charge even more for Hulu, signals Disney believes its content library can compete with both of those services. When Disney Chief Executive Officer Bob Iger launched Disney+ in 2019, he deliberately set the niche family offering at a low price of $6.99 per month — nearly half the price of Netflix. Last year, Disney increased the cost of Disney+ by $3 per month. Iger acknowledged he was surprised the price increase led to minimal cancelations of the service. "We took a pretty significant price increase at Disney+ sometime late in 2022, and we really didn't see significant churn or loss of subs because of that, which was actually heartening," Iger said during Disney's earnings call on Wednesday. Iger noted that Disney is deliberately trying to steer users toward its ad-supported services by keeping prices for those services the same. The advertising landscape for streaming is healthier than traditional linear TV, Iger added. Disney has added 3.3 million subscribers for its U.S. advertising-supported service after it launched in December, Iger announced on the call. About 40% of new Disney+ subscribers have signed up for the ad tier, he said.