Netflix changing plans to start from £4.99, but you'll likely need to pay more.
Netflix offers a basic service, for £4.99, for those looking for a lower-cost way to stream movies and TV programmes. Sounds too good to be true? Well, there is a catch; adverts! Adverts are around 15 or 30 seconds in length. They will play before and during series and films plus an average of 4 to 5 minutes of adverts per hour, meaning it's pretty similar to the other terrestrial UK tv stations and other satellite/cable channels. What other differences Are there between the £4.99 service and the more expensive service?
A limited number of films and TV series won't be available due to licensing restrictions, so there might be slightly fewer choices of programming.
Video quality up to 720p/HD (For both our Basic with Adverts and Basic plans.
You can still stream video via your mobile devices, but you won't have the ability to download titles, so if you like the idea of downloading something to watch when you don't have internet access, this service isn't for you, you'll have to go for the £10.99 a month service which does offer the download option.
Netflix launched this new £4.99 package after losing around 1.2M subscribers in 2022 as the cost of living crisis forced households to cut back on bills, like streaming subscriptions. Initially, millions of subscribers cancelled their Netflix account, either due to the extra cost or to show Netflix what they thought of prices being upped and password sharing being stopped; however, 5.9 million people signed up to Netflix in the three months to the end of June 2023, so it seems that people have just accepted that if they want the service, they'll have to pay!
On 23 May 2023, Netflix removed the option for password sharing outside your household (not that they actually allowed you to do that anyway, but it was possible to do this!), so if you wanted to let your friend use you aren't able to do so unless you pay an additional £4.99 per month for this option. You can only buy extra profiles on Netflix's standard and premium plans though.
My daughter moved into her own flat, and it has meant that she no longer lives in our 'household' so she can no longer watch Netflix, so its a bit of a shame, as nothing has really changed; it's still the same number of people that would be using the account, it's just one of the family would have been using it 12 miles away from the rest of us, and now it means paying an extra £59.88 a year for her to watch using the family account.
Those customers who didn't want to, or couldn't afford to pay £10.99 a month (there was also a £7.99 a month service, but this was closed to new subscribers), when prices went up again in October 2023, were at least able to get a Netflix service for under a fiver, albeit a more limited service, and this seems to have been taken up by a large number of people, who otherwise may have cancelled their subscription.
The table below shows all the Netflix packages available for new subscribers as of January 2024.
Basic with ads £4.99 | Standard - £10.99 | Premium - £17.99 |
✓ Watch on 1 supported device at a time | ✓ Watch on 2 supported devices at a time | ✓ Watch on 4 supported devices at a time |
Some movies and TV shows unavailable. Unlimited mobile games | ✓ Unlimited movies, TV shows, and mobile games | ✓ Unlimited movies, TV shows, and mobile games |
✓ Watch in HD | ✓ Watch in Full HD | ✓ Watch in Ultra HD |
| ✓ Ad-free TV shows and movies | ✓ Ad-free TV shows and movies |
| ✓ Download on 2 supported devices at a time | ✓ Download on 4 supported devices at a time |
It may be worth checking if your current, paid-for TV provider offers any special deals for adding Netflix to your account. I'm with Sky, and I get Netflix at a discount, and some packages give you Netflix for nothing, sometimes just for a few months, but it's definitely worth checking out.
Amazon Prime offer Prime Video as part of their benefits package, and you can use that to watch movies and TV programmes; however, as of February 2024, you'll have to pay an extra £2.99 a month, or £35.88 per year to watch the shows without adverts, so unless you don't mind being interrupted while watching your show, it's another monthly expense you might not want to pay!
▶︎ Did you know that there are secret codes that will show you all the movies available for a specific genre that might not actually be showing on the main Netflix menu? You can find out more about this on the blog here.