Max Raises Price for Ad-Free Subscriber Tier

Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) on HBO’s ‘House of the Dragon.’

Courtesy of HBO

The Max streaming platform has raised its prices for monthly and yearly ad-free plans.

Beginning Tuesday, the Max With Ads plan remains unchanged at $9.99 a month, or $99.99 for a year’s service. But the ad-free tiers will see their prices rise.

The monthly plan for Max without commercials will increase by $1 per month to $16.99 a month. And the yearly ad-free plan will jump by $20 to $169.99 for the year. And the Ultimate Ad-Free tier will also rise by $1 to a new price of $20.99 per month.

The yearly Ultimate Ad-Free plan will jump by $10 to $209.99 for the year. The new prices will apply to new subscriptions. Existing monthly and yearly subscribers will be told 30 days before their plan comes up for renewal of the new pricing.

WBD is following a strategy pushed by other streamers in raising prices of the ad-free tier while keeping the ad tier the same price. The price hikes for ad-free Max tiers unveiled Tuesday is being seen as a bid by the studio to get subscribers to adopt its ad-supported plans just as streaming platform rivals like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video introduce their own ad-free services.

Price hikes have happened elsewhere across the streaming landscape as the major studios look to get their streaming platforms to profitability as their linear TV networks have reduced appeal for consumers in an era of cord-cutting and cord nevers.

Peacock, the NBCUniversal streaming service, unveiled plans to raise the monthly and annual fees for its Peacock Premium and Premium Plus tiers ahead of this summer’s Paris Olympics.