Basic Hulu Plan Cost To Drop By $2

Just a week after Netflix announced price increases for subscriptions, Hulu announced plans to drop the price of its cheapest package by $2.

The company announced that beginning on February 6, Hulu’s basic plan which includes advertisements will cost $6 per month.

Hulu also plans on making a $5 increase for its live television plan, which will become $45 per month. The on-demand plan without ads will remain at its current price of $12.


The announcement comes in the wake of Netflix’s (NFLX) decision to increase prices in the United States. All three of that company’s plans will increase in price by $1-$2, which means the most basic version of Netflix will cost $9.

Unlike Hulu, Netflix does not have ads on any of its plans, nor does it offer a service with live TV.

Over the last year, Hulu has focused on the growth of domestic subscriptions. The company announced earlier this year that it added eight million new subscribers in 2018, bringing its total to 25 million. It also grew advertising revenue to nearly $1.5 billion last year, the most in the service’s history.

In fact, the company’s gains in the United States last year were larger than Netflix’s — the latter streamer added about 5.7 million paid domestic subscribers, according to its latest earnings report.

Hulu still is nowhere close to passing Netflix, which says it has roughly 58 million paid subscribers stateside. Unlike Hulu, Netflix has global reach — and with that, about 139 million paid subscribers overall.

Netflix stock, though, has struggled since the company last reported quarterly results. Shares were down another 1%, as of Wednesday.

Hulu is owned in part by Disney (DIS), which will increase its stake to 60% after its deal for most of 21st Century Fox closes. Comcast (CMCSA) owns 30%, and AT&T’s (T) WarnerMedia owns the remaining 10%. WarnerMedia is also the parent company of CNN.