While the current price plan is 13.99 US$ / 19.90 CHF
for the premium package, Netflix is already testing a
new price plan that will have 4 different stages.
The basic plan will be SD-only quality.

So how does the current price plans compare to the new structure?

Current price plans:

That’s the current chart! Now on to the future price plan chart:

As you can see, the basic plan will experience no price bump at all

The standard plan will raise by $1 / CHF2.00 which is a raise by 11%, no new features added!

The Premium plan will raise by $2 / CHF3.00 which is a raise by 16%, also no new features added

The new Ultra plan will raise monthly fees by $3 / CHF5.00 which is 20% more than the premium plan. The only new feature is HDR for UHD users.

Fortunately Netflix gave up on the idea to cut down the simultaneous logins for Premium users to 2 (from 4) which would have been a too harsh cut for even more to pay for.

All in all it’s up to you if you desperately need HDR for a hefty price tag. And the next thing is that your device must be capable of handling HDR signals. Most handheld devices can’t and oder streaming boxes wouldn’t either. And just updating a fine-working Apple TV from 3rd generation to 4th generation just to have HDR? I guess most people wouldn’t do that either.

So let’s see if Netflix will be still as successful as today when raising the prices. There’s no date when this price raise will take effect but it will affect all customers, new and existing!

On the other hand there aren’t so many other streaming alternatives that offer the same features at the same price tag.

Hulu has a basic package for $7.99 (unavailable in Switzerland, so no prices in CHF) which however pesters you with a load of commercials and if you wish to access exclusive content from HBO, Showtime or Cinemax, then you need “Add-ons” which will also raise prices. The Ultra streaming package with replay TV will kick in at a hefty $39.99. That’s no option at all!

Amazon Video is in the same price rance but offers way less when it comes to series and even worse: Although the catalogue has 1700 series listed, only 100 of them are available in Switzerland for some odd reason. So why pay $7.99 / CHF9.90 for such a limited program?

Apple iTunes is a good alternative but if your devices aren’t from Apple then you’re lost! So also not a real competition to Netflix.