Disney Plus will shake up its subscription plans next month – adding as much as £36 to your bills.
Starting from November 1, the House of Mouse will switch from a one-size-fits-all approach to 3 distinct subscription tiers: Disney Plus Standard with Ads, Disney Plus Standard, and Disney Plus Premium. Each of these arrives with a different price tag ranging from £4.99 to £10.99 per month, with more affordable plans seeing limitations on picture quality, total number of simultaneous streams, and select features like offline viewing.
If you want to continue using all of the features available with your current £7.99 Disney Plus subscription plan, you’ll need to cough up £10.99 per month. Over the cost of a year, that’s an extra £36 for those paying monthly.
Fortunately, there’s still time before the new pricing structure kicks in – so you can grab a yearly subscription right now for £79.90 and get 12 months for the price of 10. Not only that, but you’ll enjoy all of the same features as the most expensive Disney Plus Premium (£10.99) subscription until October 2024 without the cost.
Disney Plus is packed with exclusive TV shows, documentaries and movies from a wide variety of Walt Disney brands, from classic hand-drawn animation like Sleeping Beauty and The Lion King, to the latest films from Pixar Studios like Elemental and Lightyear, horror films from Hulu like Fresh and Prey, the complete Star Wars and Indiana Jones film saga, award-winning documentaries from National Geographic like Free Solo and The Rescue, as well as every entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including recent blockbusters like Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, and Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol.3.
The Netflix rival has a packed slate of original productions too, including exclusive companion shows for Marvel fans like She-Hulk, Agatha: Coven of Chaos, Ms. Marvel, Loki, and WandaVision, as well as boxsets set within the Star Wars universe, including The Mandalorian, Ahsoka, and Andor.
You’ll also find every episode of The Simpsons and Family Guy, the return of The Kardashians with a brand-new reality series, and award-winning documentaries like The Beatles: Get Back, Fire Of Love, Free Solo and The Rescue, and shows from streaming service Hulu such as Only Murders In The Building and Dopesick included in the catalogue. Fan favourites like NCIS, Grey’s Anatomy, NCIS: Hawaii, and The Walking Dead are also included in the streamers’ humongous library.
Disney Plus has the exclusive rights to almost all of its biggest hits – as such, you won’t find these characters on any other streamer
This wealth of content has helped Disney Plus steal Netflix’s crown as the most popular streamer, with 221.1 million subscribers worldwide compared to 220.67 million subscribers for Netflix worldwide.
Of course, this humongous library of binge-able boxsets and movies comes at a cost. For those who want the very best experience while watching these shows on Disney Plus, the House of Mouse will be passing on some of those costs.
However, those who don’t mind a few adverts and aren’t precious about watching in 4K Ultra HD picture quality, the shake-up could even lower your monthly bills, thanks to the introduction of a more affordable £4.99 plan.
Starting from November 1, the new subscription tiers will be as follows…
Disney Plus Standard with Ads | £4.99
Disney Plus Standard | £7.99 per month, or £79.90 annually
Disney Plus Premium | £10.99 per month, or £109.90 annually
The only way to keep all of the same features currently available with the single £7.99 subscription – including the ability to stream in 4K Ultra HD with HDR and Dolby Atmos, download content to watch offline, stream on four devices simultaneously – is to pay for the Disney Plus Premium plan at £10.99.
An annual subscription costs £109.90, or roughly the cost of 10 months with a rolling monthly plan.
Customers will have the option to switch to Standard Plan or Standard with Ads Plan.
Both the Standard Plan or Standard with Ads Plan on Disney Plus will max out at a 1080p High Definition (HD) resolution with Stereo Sound or 5.1 Surround Sound, not Dolby Atmos.
These subscriptions enable up to two devices to watch content with the same login simultaneously. As the names of these pricing tiers suggest, Standard with Ads will have advertisements during your shows and movies, while the Standard plan will be ad-free. The only other difference is the latter supports downloads for offline viewing.
