Netflix’s ad-tier subscription is getting more expensive — and seemingly more ads

During its latest earnings report, Netflix announced it was hiking subscription prices, both for its ad-free and its ad-supported tiers. For those opting for the still cheaper ad-supported service, it likely means they’ll have to pay more money to see more ads.

“We’ve been able to shift more of our focus, more of our attention on making the offering better for advertisers to increase monetization of that growing inventory,” co-CEO Gregory Peters said on the earnings call, (emphasis ours). “This is going to remain a priority and part of our road map for at least the next several years, likely years to come after that.”

I interpret that to mean that the company could charge advertisers more for serving more ads, though it’s possible it’s one or the other.

Peters said that the company, which launched its ad service in late 2022, exceeded its ad-revenue target last quarter and doubled ad revenue in 2024 over 2023. “We expect to double it again this year,” he added.

As Sherwood News’ Jon Keegan recently reported, Netflix had the lowest percentage of ads per program out of its competitors. That’s probably more a result of not fully scaling its relatively new ad service, rather than choosing to show fewer ads.

As it stands it seems consumers are happy with the state of ads at least.

“The engagement of those ads members remains healthy,” Peters said. “View hours per member on the ads plan is similar to engagement on our standard non-ads plan in our ads country, which is a really good marker.”

The company didn’t spell out how the average revenue per membership differs now between the ad-supported and ad-free tiers.