In what is either an incredibly timely coincidence or an intentional act of aggression, Hulu announced on Wednesday that it is cutting the price of its standard plan down from $7.99 to $5.99 on February 26th. Hulu has previously lowered the price of this plan, but always as part of a temporary promotion. This appears to be permanent. The “No Ads” plan will remain at its current price of $11.99, as will the $12.99 Hulu/Spotify combo plan.
Hulu’s announcement comes just days after Netflix unveiled the biggest price increase in the history of the streaming service. Netflix’s popular standard plan (HD video and two streams at once) jumped from $10.99 to $12.99, while the basic plan was bumped up by a dollar and the premium plan increased by two dollars.
Netflix and Hulu, despite the fact that both have invested a significant amount into original programming, are markedly different services. That said, seeing the price of the standard plan on one increase while the other goes down may be enough to convince a few new subscribers to take a chance on the cheaper service.
Unfortunately, it’s not all good news for Hulu subscribers, as the Hulu + Live TV plan is actually going to be subjected to a price hike as well. Starting on February 26th, the live TV plan (which also includes 85,000+ episodes of television and thousands of films on demand) will rise from $39.99 to $44.99. A $5 increase is nothing to sneeze at, but it is worth noting that no other live TV service can offer the same on demand library as Hulu.
As a peace offering of sorts for live TV customers, Hulu is also dropping the price of the Enhanced Cloud DVR add-on (which bumps cloud storage up to 200 hours from 50 hours) and the Unlimited Screens add-on from $14.99 to $9.99, respectively. It’s not much, but it should balance out the price hike for some live TV subscribers
