Is it really a new year without a new price increase on streaming? Although, honestly, most people I know just watch their streamers with ads these days to hopefully avoid the price hikes that hit hardest. BUT if you’re one of the people who are still trying to watch streaming content without ads, listen up. Prime Video’s ad-free tier, now called Prime Video Ultra, is about to see a price hike. The cost of Prime Video’s ad-free tier is about to increase to $5 per month. Do you hear that? It’s the sound of our wallets groaning.
Prime Video, at its base, currently costs $14.99/month or $139/year in the United States. When Prime Video introduced ads to the equation, it also created an ad-free tier that cost an additional $2.99/month. Now, that Prime Video ad-free tier is seeing a price hike of $2/month, bringing the cost to $4.99/month. What are ads worth to you?
There are some perks in the mix of this Prime Video price increase. A Prime Video Ultra subscription will allow ad-free subscribers to have up to 5 concurrent streams (up from 3), up to 100 downloads that you can watch offline (way up from 25), and exclusive access to 4K/UHD streaming. It’s something, but as we always ask, if the price increases on streaming never actually end, are we ever really seeing value that matches? You can learn more about Prime Video Ultra here.
At some point, price increases will become prohibitive to viewers. Already, many viewers are subscribing to certain platforms to watch certain series or movies, then unsubscribing. And surely, that can’t be a better model for the streamers. We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again, the first streamer to announce a price DECREASE will get a lot of goodwill.
That said, at least this Prime Video price hike only increases the price of the ad-free tiers. At this point, many consumers have just resigned themselves to ads, so it probably doesn’t even impact you. Still, our wallets are tired. Please let them live!
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