Price hikes hit Max ahead of ‘House of the Dragon’ sophomore season

Tired of shelling out more and more moolah on streaming platforms? Well, have we got bad news for you.

Ad-free viewers of Warner Bros. Discovery-owned streamer Max will soon be paying more, marking the first price increase for the streamer since January 2023. The price increase, which became effective June 4 for new subscribers, means the monthly ad-free plan now costs $16.99 a month, a $1 increase, while the yearly ad-free plan is $20 pricier, at $169.99 a year.

The streamer’s monthly Ultimate Ad-Free plan jumped $1 to $20.99 a month, while the yearly version now costs $209.99, a $10 increase. Max’s ad-supported tier, meanwhile, will continue to cost subscribers $9.99 a month, or $99.99 a year.

The price hikes, which arrived ahead of Max’s highly anticipated release of season two of its Game of Thrones spinoff series House of the Dragon, is the latest example of streamers opting to make ad-free viewing more expensive, and it comes as the industry adjusts to maturation and looks for paths to profitability.

Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) in particular has ambitious goals for Max, and hiking subscription prices could help. The company aims to make $1 billion in streaming profits in 2025, Andrew Georgiou, president and managing director of WBD UK & Ireland and WBD Sports Europe, said at a London conference this week. Max is also targeting a 125 million global subscriber base in that same time period; it’s currently hovering around 100 million subscribers.

Other streamers have leaned into strategically timed price hikes, too. Next month, Peacock is set to raise prices for the second time in two years ahead of the Paris Olympics. And last October, Netflix upped its prices ahead of the release of its Squid Game reality competition show and its live sporting event, The Netflix Cup.

Executives have been up-front that the move to make ad-free viewing more expensive is designed to drive users to ad-supported viewing, which they view as potentially more monetizable.

As streamers hike prices on one end, they’re also finding ways to discount their services through bundling. Comcast’s StreamSaver is bundling AppleTV+, Netflix, and Peacock while Fox, WBD, and Disney are working together on a sports streamer, Venu, which is slated to roll out this fall. When Disney+ increased prices last year, it simultaneously rolled out a new Disney+ and Hulu package.