Disney Plus gets an ad tier — and gets more expensive

At today’s shareholder meeting, Disney announced that ads are coming to Disney Plus.

Beginning December 8th, a version of the Disney streaming service with ads will be available for $7.99 per month. If you’re scratching your head, doing the math, and wondering why that’s about the same as your current ad-free subscription, it’s because the ad-free tier will go up to $10.99 per month. The ad version will be known as Disney Plus Basic, the ad-free tier as Disney Plus Premium. All Disney Plus titles will continue to be available on both platforms.

This is a similar model to Hulu, another Disney-owned streaming service that also has ad-free and ad-supported models. And yes, Hulu will also get a price increase starting October 10th. The basic subscription increases by a dollar from $6.99 to $7.99, with the ad-free tier going from $12.99 to $14.99. Meanwhile, the Disney Plus bundle — which currently includes Hulu with ads, Disney Plus without ads, and ESPN Plus — will increase from $13.99 to $14.99 per month. The premium version, which includes ad-free Hulu, remains the same at $19.99 per month. Meanwhile, Disney has already announced that ESPN Plus prices will increase by the end of the month.

Disney previously announced that an ad-supported model of Disney Plus would be coming in late 2022 — though it reportedly costs less than the ad-free version. And it’s true; Increasing the price of the ad-free version will surely make the ad tier cheaper.