In recent months, Netflix has been forcing subscribers off of the Basic plan, which was officially discontinued earlier this year. The Basic plan was the cheapest way to watch Netflix without ads, but in an attempt to push more users to its ad-supported plan, Netflix removed the option to sign up for the Basic plan in January.
In the ensuing months, Basic plan members in certain regions began receiving messages from Netflix letting them know that they had to pick a new plan. Now, anyone on the Basic plan in the US is about to have to make the same decision.
After reporting Q2 2024 earnings on Thursday, Netflix sent a letter to shareholders summarizing the latest quarter. In that letter, Netflix confirmed that Basic plan members in the US and France are going to start being kicked off of the streaming service.
“Just over 18 months since launch, we continue to scale our ads tier, which now accounts for over 45% of all signups in our ads markets,” Netflix execs told shareholders. “Its attractiveness ($6.99 a month in the US, with two streams, high definition and downloads) — coupled with the phasing out of our Basic plan in the UK and Canada, which we will now start in the US and France — has increased our ads member base by 34% sequentially in Q2.”
If you’re still paying for the Basic plan, you might want to start deciding what to do. In the coming days, Netflix is going to ask its Basic plan members in the US to either pick a new plan or cancel their accounts. Those are your only two options.
If you decide that you want to keep watching Netflix despite these changes, you will have three plans to choose from. Standard with ads is now the cheapest option at $6.99/month, but it does not have the full library of content on the ad-free plans. The Standard plan costs $15.49/month, and the Premium plan costs $22.99/month and adds Ultra HD video quality.
