Netflix Warning Grandfathered Customers About Monthly Price Hike Coming in May - MacRumorsOpen MenuShow RoundupsShow Forums menuVisit ForumsOpen Sidebar
Skip to Content

Netflix Warning Grandfathered Customers About Monthly Price Hike Coming in May

by

In January, Netflix announced that it was raising the prices for all of its subscription tiers, making the popular "Standard" tier increase from $10.99/month to $12.99/month. This change took effect immediately for new customers signing up for Netflix, while existing customers were grandfathered into their prices for a limited time.

netflix price hike
That time is now almost up, as Netflix has begun emailing grandfathered customers on the day of their subscription renewal, warning them that their monthly subscription cost will be going up in May. A warning will also appear within the Netflix mobile app. This change affects all tiers: the cheap "Basic" tier will rise from $7.99 to $8.99/month, the popular HD "Standard" tier will rise from $10.99 to $12.99/month, and the 4K "Premium" tier will rise from $13.99 to $15.99/month.

In the email, Netflix says that this price hike is required to improve the service so that subscribers can have "even more" TV shows and movies to enjoy. Netflix has been quickly increasing the amount of original content on its service as third parties remove their films and TV shows and create their own streaming platforms, like Disney has done for its upcoming service Disney+. In order to fund all of the original productions, subscription costs have now increased for all Netflix users.

We hope you have been enjoying your Netflix membership. We are writing to let you know about an upcoming change. Your monthly price is increasing to $12.99 on Thursday, May 9th 2019. Why? We’re hard at work improving Netflix so that you can have even more great TV shows and movies to enjoy.

Here’s to watching what you want, when you want, where you want. You can change your plan, or if you do not wish to continue your membership, as always you can cancel any time at netflix.com/cancel.
We're here to help if you need it. Visit the Help Center for more info or contact us.

–The Netflix Team

This new price hike represents a jump of between 13 percent and 18 percent, which is Netflix's biggest price increase since it launched streaming 12 years ago. According to a CNBC report, Netflix will also use the extra cash to finance debt that it's recently taken on to "ward off streaming threats" from rivals like Apple, which just revealed its Apple TV+ streaming service that's set to launch later in 2019.

As of 2019, this is the fourth price hike for Netflix subscribers in the streaming service's history. The HD Standard tier was priced at $7.99/month, rose to $8.99/month in 2014, and then to $9.99/month in 2016, when CEO Reed Hastings reported an "unexpected" loss of subscribers due to the hike. In November 2017 the tier rose to $10.99/month, and now it will be priced at $12.99/month.

Tag: Netflix

Top Rated Comments

mlabonte21 Avatar
91 months ago
For just an extra $2, you can get:

* All Marvel Shows Cancelled
* All Disney/Pixar/Marvel Movies removed by years-end
* Airplay Support Removed

What a bargain!!
Score: 37 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Mr. Donahue Avatar
91 months ago
Bye bye Netflix. You too greedy too fast. You ain’t HBO. HBO isn’t even HBO and you charging HBO prices!!!!! Eeeek!
Score: 19 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Unity451 Avatar
91 months ago
Glad T-Mobile picks up the check for me.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Mr. Donahue Avatar
91 months ago
For just an extra $2, you can get:

* All Marvel Shows Cancelled
* All Disney/Pixar/Marvel Movies removed by years-end
* Airplay Support Removed

What a bargain!!
Best comment ever. That’s exactly what’s happening.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Saipher Avatar
91 months ago
Netflix says that this price hike is required to improve the service so that subscribers can have "even more" TV shows and movies to enjoy
Excuses... There is no need for "even more" content. People can barely keep up with what it's already there.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
felixroqu3 Avatar
91 months ago
I don't understand. Netflix was introduced so people can "cut cable off" because it was cheaper. Now third parties are removing their content from Netflix because they want to launch their own streaming services which will probably cost the same as Netflix. So cable is now pretty much out of the picture(compared to 10 years ago), BUT now there are tons of different streaming services to choose from. This is like the cable era all over again.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

iPhone 18 Pro Deep Red Feature

iPhone 18 Pro Launching Later This Year With These 12 New Features

Wednesday March 18, 2026 7:39 am PDT by
While the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are not expected to launch for another six months or so, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. It was initially reported that the iPhone 18 Pro models would have fully under-screen Face ID, with only a front camera visible in the top-left corner of the screen. However, the latest rumors indicate that only one Face ID component...
imac video apple feature

Apple Released Yet Another New Product Today

Friday March 20, 2026 2:39 pm PDT by
Apple has unveiled a whopping nine new products so far this March, including an iPhone 17e, iPad Air models with the M4 chip, MacBook Air models with the M5 chip, MacBook Pro models with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, the all-new MacBook Neo, an updated Studio Display, a higher-end Studio Display XDR, AirPods Max 2, and now the Nike Powerbeats Pro 2. iPhone 17e features the same overall design as...
ios 26 4 yellow

Here Are Apple's Release Notes for iOS 26.4

Wednesday March 18, 2026 11:56 am PDT by
Apple provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate versions of iOS 26.4 and iPadOS 26.4, which means we're going to see a public launch as soon as next week. The RC versions of the software include Apple's official release notes, giving us final details on what's included in the update. Apple Music - Playlist Playground (beta) generates a playlist from your...
Related Apple News: News | Lifestyle | South Africa | Sport | Ipad