Netflix Announces Price Hike, Splits DVD And Streaming Plans

Back in April we talked about Netflix considering some major changes to their pricing plans and today the company has officially unveiled those details. But they're not quite what we were expecting. The most popular DVD-rental service in the country has decided to unbundle their DVD and streaming plan so that each must be separately subscribed with a result of costing more.

The unlimited DVD and streaming bundle used to cost customers $9.99 a month, but will now cost $15.98 a month as customers will have to separately subscribe to the DVD plan for $7.99 a month and the streaming plan for another $7.99 a month. Additionally, the company has announced new DVD plans of $7.99 a month for 1 DVD out-at-a-time or $11.99 a month for 2 DVDs out-at-a-time.

The reasoning behind this move? Netflix explains that when they first unveiled their unlimited streaming plan and treated DVDs as a $2 add on, they didn't realize that there was still quite a large demand for DVDs. Since it did not make financial sense for their business, they are now separating it from streaming to more accurately reflect the cost of the service.

The new pricing plan will take effect immediately for new customers but will not be instated until September 1 for existing customers.

[via Netflix Blog]