Max increased the price of its ad-free plans earlier today, and while all ad-free subscribers are going to be affected by the latest changes, those signed up to the standard ‘Ad-Free’ annual plan are going to be hit the hardest overall.
The last Max price increase only landed in January of 2023 and only affected those signed up to the standard Ad-Free tier. Considering Max was still HBO Max back then, Warner Bros. Discovery had yet to launch its third ‘Ultimate Ad-Free’ tier.
Even more specifically, the previous price increase only affected those signed up to the monthly Ad-Free plan. Annual Ad-Free subscribers escaped the increase and continued to pay the same $149.99 a year. At the time, this seemed like a good move by Warner Bros. Discovery, as it added an extra incentive for annual subscribers to consider upgrading to the ad-free plan.
This time, however, not only are those same annual Ad-Free subscribers included in the latest round of price increases, but Warner Bros. Discovery has accounted for the lack of an increase last year by effectively doubling the increase this year.
While Ultimate Ad-Free annual subscribers will see their subscription price rise by $10 a year, standard Ad-Free annual subscribers will see their cost increase by $20 a year. On average, this results in the cost of the Ad-Free tier rising from $12.49 a month to $14.16 a month.
In other words, Ad-Free subscribers will now pay $1.67 a month on average more than they did before, while monthly Ad-Free and monthly Ultimate Ad-Free subscribers will pay $1 more a month.
Arguably, annual Ultimate Ad-Free subscribers are making out the best here, as their $10 yearly increase equates to only $0.83 more each month.
Leave a Reply