Netflix has just announced a major change to its subscription plans and it could mean very bad news for your bill. During its latest earnings call, the streaming giant announced shock plans to fully retire its “Basics” plan in the UK and Canada which could mean those already signed up for this option will have to pay more to continue watching shows and movies advert free.
“We’re looking to retire our Basic plan in some of our ads countries starting with Canada and the UK in Q2 and taking it from there,” Netflix confirmed.
The Basics plan had already been scrapped for new users but this looks like it will now affect existing customers as well.
So what does that mean for bills?
Netflix now has a number of other options for users including viewing with adverts which, at £4.99, is a little cheaper than the £7.99 Basics plan.
If you don’t want to be bombarded with commercials then you’ll beed to take out the Standard option which costs £10.99 – that’s £3 more than Basics.
There’s no word on when the changes are going to take place or how Netflix will inform users that they might need to switch but if Basics disappears for good then it seems almost certain that users will have to switch plans. Hopefully, more details will be announced soon.
News of Baiscs being scrapped comes as Netflix also announced that it has now signed up more than 13 million more subscribers. That growth is in the wake of its password-sharing crackdown which started last year and users giving their account details to friends and family.
Netflix co-CEO, Greg Peters, said: “We largely put price increases on hold as we rolled out paid sharing. Now that we’re through that, we’re able to resume our standard approach.” Many new members opted for the firm’s cheapest £4.99-a-month standard plan with adverts – it costs £10.99 without them.
Netflix said the cheap plan accounted for 40% of new sign-ups in its 12 ad-offering nations, including the UK and US.
