Netflix’s most affordable option for people who want to avoid commercials is going away.
The streaming service has updated its plans and pricing page to remove its $10 Basic tier, which was previously the lowest-priced option for viewers who didn’t want ads to interrupt their programs. The cheapest non-commercial option, the Standard plan, now runs $15.49 per month. Ad-supported programming can still be watched for $6.99 per month. (The ads, of course, were a recent addition following the punishing stock swoon that followed its first ever decline in subscribers.)
The cuts affect users in the U.S. And U.K. The Basic tier has already vanished in some other regions, including Canada, which lost the option last month.
Customers who are currently on the Basic plan will not face higher bills. They’ll be able to maintain their current rate until they cancel or change their membership.
The Basic option came with limitations. Users, for instance, could only stream on a single device and could only download content to a single phone or tablet. It was the plan for singles. The Standard plan lets users stream in more than one place at a time, but that comes at a premium of more than 50%.
Ad-supported plans are more affordable, but will force viewers to watch roughly four minutes of ads per hour, with some slight restrictions on the content that can be viewed, due to licensing restrictions.
The elimination of the lowest-priced ad-free option comes months after Netflix cracked down on password sharing. The company is in the midst of a push to increase its revenues and subscriptions after they began to taper off at the end of the pandemic.
