Disney ups Hulu prices

Disney has announced an increase to Hulu subscription costs.

Starting on October 8, both Hulu’s ad-supported and ad-free tiers are increasing in cost by US$1 to US$6.99 and US$12.99 per month respectively.

The company is not increasing the cost of its cord-cutting Hulu + Live TV service.

This is the latest attempt from Disney to push its US-only streaming bundle of Disney+, Hulu and sports streamer ESPN+. The bundle with ad-supported Hulu currently costs US$13.99 per month, while the version with ad-free Hulu costs US$19.99 per month. In both cases, signing up for the Disney bundle versus all three services separately presents consumers with a saving of almost US$100 per year. 

Disney CEO Bob Chapek has openly spoken on the company’s goals to focus on the bundle, telling analysts on a recent earnings call: “While we enjoy extremely low churn rates on our individual services, the churn rates on the bundle are even lower, surprisingly low even for us. I think what that says is that our customers enjoy the price value of the bundle that we offer and getting an incredible amount of content for a really good price.”