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Max decides to increase its prices a few days before 'House of the Dragon' season 2 premiere

The streaming platform increased its cost in two of its three plans. From now on, the basic plan without monthly ads will cost $16.99 and the annual plan in its Ultimate version will be $209.99.

Fotograma de uno de los tráilers promocionales de la segunda temporada de 'House of the Dragon', la nueva tanda de episodios que llegarán a HBO Max el próximo 16 de junio de 2024.

(HBO Max)

Published by
Rosana Rábago Sainz

The Warner Bros. Discovery platform, Max, decided to increase its prices a few days before the premiere of the second season of "House of the Dragon." As such, the streaming platform has increased its cost in two of its three available plans, those intended to be advertisement-free will see a slight increase in their price.

Thus, the standard plan will go from $15.99 per month (or $149.99 per year) to a price of $16.99/month (or $169.99/year), while the Ultimate plan will increase its price by one dollar per month (going from $19.99 per month to $20.99). This means that those who have the annual Ultimate plan will pay a total price of $209.99 starting June 4, twelve days before season 2 of the popular series "House of the Dragon" premieres.

Warner Bros. Discovery justified the price increase to its clients through a letter that the entertainment portal Variety obtained access to. In this letter, the company assured that the increase in cost was due to the fact that they wanted to "invest in delivering more culture-defining programming" and is beneficial for its users:

Max is the one to watch for iconic series, hit movies, fresh originals, family favorites, breaking news, and live sports, and this increase allows us to continue to invest in delivering more culture-defining programming and improving our customer experience for all users.

The real reason behind Max's price increase, accelerating the streaming service's profitability

As the magazine was able to find out, the real reason for the price increase would be to "accelerate the profitability of the streaming service and encourage the most price-sensitive consumers" to bet on the advertising plan.

It is true that the first quarter results, reported Warner Bros. Discovery at the time, were very positive and achieved $2.46 billion in revenue while profits amounted to $86 million. And that, said CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels, encourages them to remain "fully confident" that they will be able to achieve their goal by 2025:

With our strong start in Q1, I expect us to remain profitable in the [direct-to-consumer] segment during 2024, despite the heavy launch investments. I remain fully confident in our path to achieve our $1 billion plus EBITDA target for 2025 and our growth ambitions thereafter.
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