Netflix accused of 'losing its mind' over price increase after making $45 billion last year

Joe Harker
2026-03-27T13:14:32.246Z
Entertainment

Prices for the streaming giant have gone up once again

The cost of a Netflix subscription in the US is rising again, a little over a year after the previous price rise.

Their standard package in the US was raised to $17.99 a month in January last year and now it's going up by a couple of bucks to $19.99, the same rate applies to their premium package which went up to $24.99 last year and is now climbing to $26.99.

If you watch Netflix with adverts it's going up by one dollar from $7.99 to $8.99.

Subscription price rises are never popular among customers but for everyone who decides they've had it with the increases more keep signing up as the streaming platform reached 325 million subscribers by the end of last year.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Netflix got their revenues up to $45.18 billion across the whole of 2025 and had a net income of $10.98 billion, which may leave a lot of subscribers wondering why their fees need to go up if they're making that much money.

The price of a Netflix subscription has risen several times in the past few years (LADbible)

The platform also recently tried to buy Warner Bros for a huge amount of money before Paramount ended up pushing forward with the deal instead, so it's not as though they are without money.

In fact, for their deal with Warner Bros falling through Netflix got a payment of $2.8 billion from Paramount as a 'breakup fee'.

Speaking on the price rises, a spokesperson for Netflix told Variety: "Our approach remains the same: We continue offering a range of prices and plans to meet a variety of needs, and as we deliver more value to our members we are updating our prices to enable us to reinvest in quality entertainment and improve their experience by updating our prices."

It has some subscribers vowing to cancel their subscriptions, as is customary whenever there's a price rise, as people said 'these companies have lost their minds' over continuing to put the prices up when they've shown they have lots of money.

Others said the increases were a 'test' of 'how much people are willing to keep paying for convenience'.

Subscribers are wondering why the price is going up when Netflix didn't buy Warner Bros (Thomas Fuller/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Some subscribers said 'a price increase would've made sense' if Netflix had bought Warner Bros in a multi billion dollar deal, but since it fell through they're wondering what the company needs that extra money for.

Nobody likes paying more for the thing they were already paying for.

Cast your minds back three years ago and people on Netflix's 'basic' subscription tier were paying $9.99 a month to watch without adverts.

Variety suggests the price rise it shows Netflix believes it has 'pricing power' over its rivals that it can raise the cost and any money lost by people cancelling their subscription will be more than made up for by new subscribers and everyone else staying paying extra.

Netflix will be notifying existing customers by email a month before the price rise will apply to them.

While these price rises are for US customers, other Netflix subscribers around the world may want to keep an eye on an announcement that their own packages are getting more expensive.