After Netflix price hikes, Hulu will lower its base, ad-supported subscription plan to $6/mo, down from $8/mo, and hike its Live TV service to $45/mo on Feb. 26
and lowers its own basic on-demand rate Todd Spangler / Variety : Hulu Hikes Price of Live-TV Bundle to $45 Monthly, Drops VOD Plan With Ads to $6 Leticia Miranda / BuzzFeed News : Hulu Drops The Price Of Its Basic Plan Just After Netflix Announced Rate Increases Parker Hall / Digital Trends : Hulu drops price for entry-level users, hikes price of live TV tier Sarah Perez / TechCrunch : Hulu drops the price for its streaming service to $6 per month, but raises prices for Live TV Sara Salinas / CNBC : Hulu is dropping the price of its most popular plan to $5.99 per month James Loke Hale / Tubefilter : Hulu Drops Price Of Ad-Supported Subscription Plan, Increases Price For Hulu With Live TV Cody Lee / iDownloadBlog.com : Hulu lowers entry level plan price to $5.99/month, raises Live TV price Maggie Tillman / Pocket-lint : Hulu drops price of basic plan following Netflix's price hikes Abby Jackson / Business Insider : Experts say NBCU's ad-supported streaming model could help it sign on rivals as partners … GameSpot : Following Netflix Price Hike, Hulu Drops Cost For Ad-Supported Tier Juli Clover / MacRumors : Hulu Drops Price of Ad-Supported Service to $5.99/Month, but Raises Live TV Price Victoria Song / Gizmodo : Hulu Is Cutting the Price of Its Cheapest Plan—and Increasing the Cost of Live TV Sarah Perez / TechCrunch : Suppose TV can now alert you to changes in TV packages, so you get the best deal Mike Snider / USA Today : Hulu updates monthly pricing: Live TV bill goes up while on-demand cost drops Emily Heller / Polygon : Hulu announces a price drop, just days after Netflix's price hike Jacob Siegal / BGR : Hulu dropped the price of its standard plan right after Netflix raised its prices Timi Cantisano / Neowin : Hulu to lower the price of its ad-supported tier; but Live TV tier will get a $5 increase Jared Newman / Fast Company : Hulu is raising-and lowering-prices C. Scott Brown / Android Authority : Hulu lowers entry price, but raises premium pricing to as high as $50.99 Shawn Knight / TechSpot : Hulu responds to Netflix price hike with a rate cut Jon Fingas / Engadget : Hulu cuts the price of its basic service to $6 per month Evan Selleck / iPhone Hacks : Hulu is Lowering the Price of its Base, Ad-Supported Plan Chance Miller / 9to5Mac : Following Netflix's price hike, Hulu announces price drop for its entry-level ad-supported plan Erin Corbett / Fortune : Hulu Lowers Its Prices After Netflix's Biggest Price Hike Peter Kafka / Recode : Hulu is cutting the price of its most popular streaming service — and raising the price of its most expensive one Jon Porter / The Verge : Viacom acquires Pluto TV streaming service for $340 million Tweets: Isaiah Hickland / @isaiahhickland : They announced this a few days after Netflix announced they're raising their prices. Just like they dropped their Fyre Festival documentary a few days before Netflix dropped theirs. Gotta love the commitment to pettiness http://twitter.com/... Peter Kafka / @pkafka : tldr'ing myself: Hulu's owners (ie: Disney) are ok losing money on their version of Netflix. They are not happy about losing money on their version of cable tv. http://www.recode.net/... Ben Bajarin / @benbajarin : Many analysts on the financial side, who track Netflix, have wondered if/when Netflix will offer a lower priced ad supported model. I'm beginning to doubt that will happen or even needs to happen. http://twitter.com/... M.G. Siegler / @mgsiegler : When they go high, we go low. But also higher. http://twitter.com/... Emil Protalinski / @epro : U.S. publications really have to stop putting @hulu and @netflix on the same level. Hulu availability: 2 countries Netflix availability: 190 countries See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
Hulu's repricing lands days after Netflix raised its own rates, and it splits the company's lineup in opposite directions: the ad-supported plan that has been Hulu's volume engine since before the $12 commercial-free option launched in 2015 gets cheaper at $5.99, while the live-TV bundle that debuted at $40 a month in 2017 climbs to $45.
First-order effects
- Ad-supported subscribers see their bill drop by $2/month on Feb. 26, making Hulu the cheapest major on-demand streamer precisely when Netflix is asking existing subscribers for more.
- Hulu With Live TV subscribers absorb a $5/month increase, widening the gap between the entry tier and the bundle to nearly 8x.
Second-order effects
- The cut pressures Netflix and other ad-light rivals to defend their price umbrella with content rather than cost, while giving advertisers a larger, cheaper audience pool as the ad tier grows.
- Pricing the live bundle further above the on-demand plan risks bundle cannibalization inside Hulu's own lineup, nudging cord-cutters toward the $5.99 tier instead of the $45 one.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — and Hulu's subsequent moves suggest it does, from the 22% Live TV hike to $54.99 later that year to the $1 across-the-board on-demand increases in 2021 — streaming settles into a bifurcated structure: cheap ad-supported tiers as the acquisition funnel, premium and live tiers carrying the margin.
- That structure makes advertising, not subscription fees alone, the swing revenue line for streamers, and pushes regulators' and investors' attention toward ad-load and ad-pricing economics rather than headline subscriber counts.
The trend: Streaming pricing is bifurcating into loss-leader ad-supported tiers and steadily rising premium/live bundles, with each Netflix hike giving rivals room to widen the spread.