Netflix price change incoming for standard and premium plans

Following the retirement of free trials here in the US, Netflix has revealed that it will soon be hiking its prices. The good news is that not everyone will see their monthly price go up, as Netflix's basic subscription will remain the same price. The bad news is that the other two plans are seeing their prices go up, which means that Netflix's most popular plan is in for a bump up in monthly cost.

According to Netflix's freshly-updated Plans and Pricing page on its support site, the standard plan – which is Netflix's most popular plan – will be going from $12.99 per month to $13.99 per month. Similarly, the premium plan will get a price hike of its own, going from $15.99 to $17.99 per month.

With the standard plan increasing by a dollar, its cost is getting dangerously close to that of HBO Max, and it's getting further away from the likes of Disney+ and Hulu (No Ads). Netflix has increased its prices a number of times throughout its long history, with the most recent price hike before this happening in January 2019. With that price increase, both the standard and premium plans went up $2 a month, while the basic plan rose by $1.

That help page doesn't explain when the price hike will happen, but in a statement to CNBC, Netflix said that updated prices will begin appearing on customer bills in the next two months. The company also said that it will give current subscribers a 30 day warning before their monthly bill increases, so if you're looking to cancel Netflix once these price hikes go into effect, keep an eye out for that 30 day warning.

With the streaming space seemingly getting more crowded by the day, raising prices too much could obviously have a negative effect on Netflix – especially as other media companies are removing their content from Netflix's library to put it on their own streaming services. We'll see what happens from here, but we'll keep our fingers crossed in the hope that this is the last pike hike we see for a long time.