Disney+ Price Increase Sparks Wave of Subscriber Cancellations

Disney+ is once again hiking up its prices and, in response, people are claiming that they are canceling their subscriptions.

The entertainment giant has been struggling for the past year. Several Disney titles that were deemed box office flops in 2023, and there was declining linear TV viewership and an uneven transition into a streaming future.

In November, Disney announced it would be slashing costs after its films lost almost $1 billion. In an earnings call, Iger said the company would cut an additional $2 billion in expenses in 2024. In January, a representative for Pixar, which is owned by Disney, confirmed to Newsweek that the animation studio is undergoing layoffs in 2024.

The company has also been hemorrhaging money through its Disney+ streaming service but managed to curb losses by raising subscription costs. And now they've raised their prices once again.

Newsweek contacted a Disney spokesperson for comment via email Monday.

The X user (formerly Twitter) @mellyfratelli, who lives in the United Kingdom, shared a screenshot of an email she received from Disney. It said from March 30, 2024, her premium subscription cost would increase to $139.50 (£109.90) a year.

She also shared a screenshot of her bank statement; it showed that, in 2020, she had paid $63.45 (£49.99) for the Disney+ annual premium subscription. In 2021, she spent $76.15 (£59.99), and in 2022, it cost her $101.40 (£79.90).

"Goodbye Disney+, you must be crazy x," she captioned her post, which went viral. At the time of writing, it had been viewed more than 4.3 million times.

At this stage, it looks like this price hike will only affect subscribers living in the U.K., Europe and Canada. The Disney+ website says the premium subscription sets back Americans $139.99 annually. It hasn't been confirmed whether this price will also be going up.

People took to the replies to share their disappointment in the entertainment company, with some saying the price has doubled in four years.

"Disney Plus more than doubling in price over 4 years is absolutely wild but somehow not unexpected. If only the calibre of content being released on the platform made the price seem worth while," one person wrote.

"How did they think they could double it in 4 years?" someone else asked.

Others expressed their frustration at the price increase and said they had canceled their subscription because of it.

"I missed this important update and genuinely thought my bank account had been hacked when I saw that £109 had gone out of it," an X user wrote.

"Yeah thanks for this!!!!!!! Mine is due for renewal next month so I'm glad I saw this!!!! How the f*** can they justify uping it that fucking much!!! Just turned off my renewal!" commented another.

"I can see we had the same reaction. I cancelled my subscription right away," someone else posted.

The choices available on the platform were not interesting enough for a viewer: "Yeah I cancelled because of this too. Hadn't found anything up my street on there anyway, so no huge loss."

A fifth added: "I cancelled mine this week. It's absolutely abysmal how much their prices have increased."

Other X users used the opportunity to provide further context surrounding the pricing of the platform.

"They have different levels now. You can still get it for £80 a month. When people signed up at the start, it was one tier and you're automatically on the top one. The standard is still a lot cheaper than the same level as Netflix," one person wrote.

Another added: "The fact that it's still one of the cheaper streaming services says a lot about how expensive streaming is."

Per Variety, Disney+ lost 1.3 million subscribers in the final quarter of 2023. The article reported that the platform's core subscribers made up of U.S. and Canadian customers, as well as international users, excluding the India-based Disney+ Hotstar, "dropped to 111.3 million from the 112.6 million reported in the previous quarter."

It also stated that Disney+ Hotstar "added 700,000 subscribers during the October-December quarter," seeing a rise to 38.3 million from the 37.6 million logged at the end of September. Disney+ Hotstar is India's largest premium streaming platform.