Apple TV+ Monthly Price Increases to $12.99

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Originally published at: Apple TV+ Monthly Price Increases to $12.99 - TidBITS

Apple has increased the monthly subscription fee for Apple TV+ to $12.99 in an effort to reduce or better monetize churn. Since Apple TV+ lacks the deep library of a Netflix or Hulu/Disney+, it’s common for people (raises hand) to subscribe, catch up on the few shows or movies they care about, and then cancel. Personally, I lucked out recently because Apple decided to give me a 3-month free trial after I bought my 14-inch MacBook Pro. I don’t plan to renew once the free trial ends.

You can save money by subscribing to the annual plan, which remains priced at $99 per year. Previously, it followed Apple’s usual formula of 10 times the monthly fee for annual plans. Apple is presumably breaking its formula and keeping the annual Apple TV+ cost lower to encourage people to stick around rather than cherry-picking shows for a month or two. Oddly, Apple doesn’t mention the $99 annual plan in the Apple TV+ pricing FAQ. I was eventually able to confirm that it still exists on the iPhone in Settings > Your Name > Subscriptions.

Apple TV+ costs

When it launched, Apple TV+ cost $4.99 per month (see “Apple Unveils Apple Arcade and Apple TV+ Prices and Dates,” 10 September 2019). Three years later, Apple increased the price to $6.99 per month (see “Apple Raises the Price of Apple Music, Apple TV+, and Apple One,” 24 October 2022) and, just a year after that, to $9.99 per month (see “Prices Increase for Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, Apple News+, and Apple One,” 25 October 2023).

In comparison, Netflix now costs $7.99 per month with ads, $17.99 per month for the Standard plan that supports 1080p and two simultaneous devices, and $24.99 per month for the Premium plan with 4K and four simultaneous devices. Hulu is $9.99 per month with ads or $18.99 per month without, though the Disney+ and Hulu bundle is only $1 more at $10.99 per month with ads and $19.99 per month without. And then there are Acorn TV, Amazon Prime, BritBox, HBO Max, Paramount+, PBS Passport, Peacock, and more.

If you subscribe to multiple streaming services to watch specific shows, you might end up paying $100 or more per month, especially if you opt for ad-free tiers. That’s a lot, but it could still be less than cable TV, which some surveys say can range from $80 to $160 per month, with the higher prices common in urban areas.

On the other hand, if you’re willing to search through a single large library service like Netflix or Hulu/Disney+, you can likely find more than enough professionally produced video entertainment that you’ll enjoy watching while paying far less.

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Since I have watched most of the programs which interest me, this increase makes it more likely that I will now cancel my subscription till something of interest appears. I have watched Severance and Silo (unbearably dark and not very welcome in these troubled times). So, I guess I am contributing to an increase in “churn”.

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I had a three month free subscription after i bought a new Apple device. I have kept the monthly subscription through all the price increases. With this new increase I realized i should be on the annual plan—and made that change yesterday.

Apple TV+ is the only streaming service I use and stream it to my iPad.

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I get Apple TV+ via the Apple One plan. I hope that the price doesn’t change. Even accounting for exchange, we pay a premium for most things in Canadian dollars.

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A couple of years ago, I started unsubscribing from most streaming services. I still have Prime Video, but that’s only because it is part of Prime. I get enough packages that Prime is worthwhile, though I’ve basically stopped watching Prime Video.

It’s amazing how much of your life you can get back when you stop feeding the subscription machine.

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It’s worth mentioning that I get AppleTV+ (as well as Netflix with ads) as part of my T-Mobile phone plan. They have not yet notified us of their action wrt this increase, but in the past they’ve absorbed the Netflix increases.

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In November 2024, Apple notified me that it would raise my monthly iCloud storage fee in December 2024 by about 15 cents, with no change in the amount of storage or other iCloud features I’d been using for years. Like other so-called “service providers,” Apple is now nickel-and-diming you to death too. The only difference is that they’re doing it in a way that you actually notice or care about for a change.

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Do you live in the United States? All dollar charges for iCloud storage have always ended in $0.99, so there would have been no 15-cent increases. If you don’t live in the USA, it was probably a currency adjustment.

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I am a U.S. expatriate resident in Japan. Apple has indeed been quick to raise prices here since the sell-off of the yen vs. the dollar following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It raised hardware prices here about 30% within a few months. So in that sense, this is of a piece. On the other hand, Apple has yet to lower prices here on occasions when the yen has appreciated against the dollar since, as of this writing. It smacks of U.S. companies using inflation and Trump tariffs as an excuse to profiteer by price-gouging.

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Thanks for the heads-up. I just changed my subscription, so when it auto-renews in mid-September, it will be for $99 for the next year instead of $13 for a month.

It does, but keep in mind that companies in general like to “play it safe”. Which means they raise prices as soon as they see news about a possible event that will cause costs to go up, but they won’t lower them until significantly after a cost-lowering event actually takes place.

And right now, there’s a whole lot of news, rumors, speculation and uncertainty, which never translates into lower prices for consumers.

Gouging and profiteering? Maybe. Or maybe just trying to minimize the risk of costs going in the opposite direction from expectations. I’ll let other people with more information try to figure out which (or maybe a bit of both) may be the case here.

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The Apple One bundle seems to be a relatively good deal with Apple Music (which I like), Apple TV+ (which I use) and Arcade (which I don’t use); also, 50 GB iCloud+ storage (I pay for additional storage on top of that). Also, I pay extra for Apple News.
“Premier” is the only level that includes News but if my arithmetic is correct, it’s cheaper to do it separately in my case.

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A ”good” thing with AppleTV+ is that it comes with the full 4K + Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision included… Since I got a TV and surround system supporting those format I like to use that. And that makes the offerings from Netflix and Disney soo expensive because if I want to take full advantage of my hardware, I need to pay for their premium package. I will dropping those this year… and that I have said several times and then there is a new show I ”need” to watch :wink:

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As a tip, if you like more art/world/indie cinema, then I like the BFI, Mubi, and Criterion Channel subs, to get quality stuff. The rest are very mainstream content based. VPNs may be necessary in your region, or not. ;-)