Disney will raise the cost of Disney+ to $7.99 per month, up from $6.99, in the US starting in March 2021, as the company heavily invests in content offerings
The service's first price hike — Disney Plus is following Netflix and introducing a $1 price hike for subscribers in the United States, raising it to $7.99 a month.
Context & Ripple Effects
Disney launched Disney+ in November 2019 at $6.99 a month — a deliberately low launch price for a service betting on volume — and this March 2021 increase to $7.99 is the service's first ever price change, coming roughly 16 months in. The description notes Disney is following Netflix, which also took a $1 monthly hike in the US.
The company frames the raise around heavy content investment, and the pattern holds across the portfolio: by July 2021 Disney had also raised ESPN+ to $7/month, while holding the $14/month Disney bundle flat — protecting the bundle as the churn shield.
First-order effects
- US Disney+ subscribers pay $1 more per month ($80/year versus the original $69.99) starting March 26, 2021, with no change announced for the bundled offering.
Second-order effects
- ESPN+ gets its own $1 monthly increase months later, showing Disney is repricing each streaming property individually rather than moving them together.
- The $7.99 price point becomes an anchor rather than a ceiling: by late 2022 Disney repurposes it as the ad-supported Disney+ Basic tier while pushing ad-free to $10.99, effectively converting today's full-price subscriber into tomorrow's ads-tier candidate.
Third-order effects
- If the sequence repeats — launch low, hike annually, introduce ads as the cheaper rung — subscription video settles into a two-ladder market where ad-free tiers climb steadily and ad tiers absorb price-sensitive subscribers, echoing the 100+ advertiser sign-ups Disney brought to Basic.
The trend: Streaming services are institutionalizing annual price increases paired with advertising tiers, trading pure subscription growth for revenue-per-user once launch-scale subscriber bases are locked in.