If you’re in one of these four countries and have been dolling out your Netflix password to friends, family, and exes, you’re about to get a bill from the company for doing it.
Netflix has announced that it is expanding its crackdown on password sharing in four more countries. In a blog post, the company revealed that the new policy is now active in Canada, New Zealand, Portugal, and Spain. While those countries are impacted immediately, Netflix does say that it will be rolling out the policy “more broadly in the coming months,” so we can all expect to be hit with it by the end of this year.
So over the last year, we’ve been exploring different approaches to address this issue in Latin America, and we’re now ready to roll them out more broadly in the coming months, starting today in Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain. Our focus has been on giving members greater control over who can access their account.
So, what will password sharing cost? It varies by country, but the range seems to be somewhere between the equivalent of $5 USD to $7 USD per user. We’ll have to wait and see to know what it will cost for sure in each country.
Members on our Standard or Premium plan in many countries (including Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain) can add an extra member sub account for up to two people they don’t live with — each with a profile, personalized recommendations, login and password — for an extra CAD$7.99 a month per person in Canada, NZD$7.99 in New Zealand, Euro 3.99 in Portugal, and Euro 5.99 in Spain.
I, for example, share my password with my family and a friend, so I’ll likely be paying $10 to $15 more per month once Netflix launches the new policy in the United States. That’ll bring my total Netflix bill to around $35 per month, which is just insane for one streaming service.
I’m definitely not the only one considering canceling due to the new policy. According to a recent survey, 62% of people said they’d consider canceling the service once the password-sharing policy goes into effect. Netflix seems resolute in its strategy, so it sounds like we’re going to find out just how many users stay true to their threat by the end of the year.
