Netflix is raising its subscription fees for Canadians, but some customers say the hikes are becoming unjustifiable.
The streaming service announced on Tuesday that prices will go up across its basic, mid-level and premium packages.
Its standard subscription with ads, which is currently $5.99 will go up to $7.99 per month, its standard plan without ads will increase by $2.50 to $18.99, and the premium plan will see a $3-hike to $23.99.
The news comes off the back of a record-breaking Q4 for Netflix, which reported 19 million new subscribers at the end of 2024, reaching 301 million globally.
The growth has been attributed in part to a year-end slate of notable releases including “Squid Games” season two, the “Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson” fight and its Christmas NFL games, which were the most streamed NFL events in history.
Nonetheless, some customers are arguing online that the price jump puts the streaming service out of reach.
“These services are pushing themselves out of the ‘sub and forget about it’ realm and into the ‘sub once or twice a year to binge’ realm with these price increases,” a Reddit user wrote.
“Once a service has 4-5 things I want to watch I sub for exactly 1 month, pay, then immediately cancel,” another person wrote.
“Not worth the price. I ditched it a few months ago,” someone else commented.
Others discussed their tactics for avoiding increasing prices which include subscribing for a short time during a sale period, binge watching and cancelling, or rotating subscriptions between multiple services.
“I keep Prime as a base sub since I use the delivery service…but between Netflix, Disney, and others I rotate them like every few months binge the shows I want then cancel,” another user wrote.
Netflix says it’s also adjusting prices for the majority of plans in the U.S., Portugal and Argentina.
