Netflix might begin charging between $7 (N2955.40) and $9 (N3799.80) per month due to its forthcoming ad-supported tier, according to a Bloomberg report.
The company currently offers plans at $9.99, $15.49, and $19.99 per month, which means you might be saving more depending on the plan you subscribe to.
Following the company’s report of losing customers for the first time in more than a decade, co-CEO Reed Hastings in April 2022 said the company was ready to consider cheaper offerings supported by ads, after years of spurning the idea.
Confirming the ads tier was in the works in June, co-CEO Ted Sarandos Microsoft was the technological partner helping to deliver on the ads.
Unsurprisingly, the ad-supported tier will have some downgrades from the no ads plans, executives have said that some content will be missing from the ad tier at launch, while code spotted in its mobile app indicates Netflix may not let users on the ad-supported tier download shows for offline viewing.
Bloomberg’s Friday report further stated that the company aims to sell approximately four minutes of ads per hour and wants to show ads ahead of and in the middle of content.
The report also mentioned that Netflix doesn’t plan to include ads with its kid’s content or original movies, adding that it is targeting to launch the ad-supported plan in “half a dozen markets” in the final quarter of this year.
The company plans to launch the tier more broadly in early 2023.
However, in an email to The Verge, Netflix spokesperson Kumiko Hidaka said that Bloomberg’s report is “all just speculation at this point.” She said that the company is “still in the early days of deciding how to launch a lower priced, ad-supported tier and no decisions have been made.”
