Netflix Raises Pricing in US and Canada: Stock Prices to Skyrocket

Online video streaming juggernaut Netflix has upped its monthly subscription prices in the United States and Canada across all plans. Although the increase in prices is a mere $1 to $2 across plans, this set off a spike in Netflix’s stock price that rose to $533.84 after a 3% increase post announcement and it closed at $525.69 with a 1.3% price higher than yesterday’s closing.

According to a Netflix spokesperson, the increase in pricing across plans is because Netflix wants to offer a wide range of quality entertainment options to its subscribers. Netflix is currently facing tremendous competition from a bunch of online streaming sites like Apple Plus, Amazon Prime Video, Disney Plus, HBO Max, and the likes of it.

Talking about the price change, the standard plan on Netflix that allows two streams simultaneously is now at $15.49/mo up from $13.99/mo in the United States. In Canada which has also seen a corresponding spike in pricing, the standard plan is available at C$16.49. It was C$14.99 earlier FYI.

Apart from that, the topmost premium plan that allows video streaming at UHD resolution on 4 devices concurrently has risen to $19.99/mo which is a $2 increase in the monthly subscription. For the Canadian subscribers, this sees a hike from C$18.99 to C$20.99.

The basic plan that has SD resolution videos with one stream at a time has jumped from $8.99/mo to $9.99/mo. Interestingly, Netflix has decided not to change the pricing for the basic plan so it remains at C$9.99.

Talking about the pricing to translated to the users, new subscribers will instantly see the new pricing. On the other hand, existing subscribers will see the change in price in their monthly bills and the changes will be rolled out only after 30 days from the announcement.

Netflix is currently one of the largest online video streaming platforms with 213.6 million and it is projected to add around 8.5 million new users from October to December that will taking the total to 222 million paid subscribers globally. The jump in subscribers counts especially magnified after the success of the South Korean series “Squid Game”.