The price for streaming Ted Lasso season 4 and other hits from Apple TV+ took a considerable jump on Thursday. The U.S. monthly fee went to $12.99, up from $9.99.
While that’s a 30% increase, it’s also the first to the streaming service in two years.
Apple TV+ price hike to $12.99
Producing successful TV series and films costs big bucks. Apple has deep pockets, but it still reportedly loses about $1 billion a year making Apple TV+ content. That’s a significant sum even for the iPhone maker. It’s supposedly tightening the purse strings a bit, and is also charging more for the service.
Starting Thursday, new subscribers pay $12.99 a month. The new price will show up on current subscribers’ bills in September. That’s for commercial-free viewing of the series and films that Apple offers. Unlike many rival streaming services, there’s no cheaper ad-supported option.
The last time the cost of Apple TV+ went up was in 2023, when it moved to $9.99 per month. Previously, there was an increase in 2022, and the streaming service started in 2019 at $4.99 a month.
Note that, as of this writing, the cost of an Apple One bundle has not increased. An individual account remains at $19.95, and includes Apple TV+, Apple Music, Apple Arcade, and 50GB of iCloud storage.
Mo’ money, mo’ content
While the cost of Apple TV+ keeps increasing, so does its library of original content. And it’s been surprisingly successful at producing hit series.
While the comedy Ted Lasso originally brought the streaming service to the attention of so many viewers, the weird workplace drama Severance has since become more popular. There are other hits too, like The Studio and Shrinking.
That said, Apple can’t come close to matching what’s available on Amazon Prime Video, Netflix or Disney+. So it’s up to each individual consumer to decide if Apple TV+ is worth the new price.
Ed Hardy has been writing full-time about tech for 25 years, and using it for much longer than that. His intro to Apple was a Macintosh Classic II (which he still has), but now he uses a 13-inch iPad Pro as his primary computer. He’s written for NotebookReview, TabletPCReview, and Brighthand, as well as other sites.
