Disney+’s New Prices Officially Reveal Its Real Hulu Strategy
Amanda M. Castro is a Network TV writer at Collider and a New York–based journalist whose work has appeared in Newsweek, where she is an Associate Editor, and The U.S. Sun, where she previously served as a Senior Consumer Reporter.
She specializes in network television coverage, delivering sharp, thoughtful analysis of long-running procedural hits and ambitious new dramas across broadcast TV. At Collider, Amanda explores character arcs, storytelling trends, and the cultural impact of network series that keep audiences tuning in week after week.
Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Amanda is bilingual and holds a degree in Communication, Film, and Media Studies from the University of New Haven.
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Disney+ is getting more expensive again, but the biggest story isn’t necessarily the price hike. It’s what Disney is making increasingly hard to ignore: subscribing to Disney+ alone doesn’t make nearly as much sense when Hulu sits right next to it.
This is the fourth straight year of price hikes for Disney+, and the ad-free tier is taking the biggest hit. Disney+ Premium now costs $21.49 per month, up $2.50 from $18.99. The ad-supported tier gets a smaller increase, rising 50 cents to $12.49 per month. Hulu’s standalone tiers are following the same pattern, with its ad-supported plan also reaching $12.49. Still, Disney has left one particularly important number alone: The Disney+/Hulu bundle with ads remains $12.99 per month, only 50 cents more than either service on its own.
Disney+ and Hulu Are Making the Bundle Look Like the Obvious Choice
The unchanged $12.99 bundle is hard to overlook because Disney has made adding Hulu almost painless. A subscriber who wants Disney+ with ads can pay $12.49 for Disney+ alone, or add another 50 cents for Hulu. The same logic applies to the premium tier, albeit with a slightly different calculation. Disney+ Premium now costs $21.49 per month, while the Disney+/Hulu Premium bundle costs $21.99. For another 50 cents, subscribers get access to both services instead of one.
Disney has spent years nudging subscribers toward bundles, but the latest pricing structure makes that pitch considerably harder to ignore. Outside of temporary promotional offers, the difference between paying for one service and paying for both has rarely been this small.
Disney doesn’t have to tell subscribers to get Hulu because the price tag does the work for it. That also makes the latest increase feel less like part of a broader strategy for how Disney wants people to use its streaming business.
Hulu Is Already Moving Into Disney+
The services are becoming more closely linked inside the products themselves. Hulu subscribers can now create a profile on Disney+, even if they don’t already subscribe. Meanwhile, Hulu programming is increasingly appearing on Disney+, with more of the services’ libraries being shared across the two platforms.
Disney has already completed its acquisition of Hulu, and the company has been moving toward a future in which the two services feel less like separate destinations. An eventual unified Disney+ app has been expected, though Disney has not provided a firm date for when that transition will be complete.
The important part is that subscribers don’t have to wait for that unified app to start experiencing its logic. If Disney can convince people that Hulu belongs inside the same ecosystem as Disney+, then the bundle becomes more useful because the products are technically one service. Disney+ is no longer the aggressively cheap streaming service it was at launch. When Disney+ debuted in 2019, it cost $6.99 per month.
The latest increase puts Disney+ Premium at $21.49 per month — more than three times its original monthly price. The change reflects the broader streaming industry’s shift from chasing subscribers to chasing profitability. Low introductory prices helped services build massive audiences. Now, those audiences are being asked to generate more revenue.
Disney has several ways to do that, including advertising, higher-priced premium plans, and bundles. The Hulu strategy fits neatly into that picture. Rather than simply asking a Disney+ subscriber to swallow another price increase, Disney can give that subscriber a reason to spend roughly the same amount on a broader package. Both Hulu and Disney+ are getting more expensive, yet the combined product can look like the better deal.
Disney’s Streaming Strategy Is Starting To Come Full Circle
The irony is that Disney’s latest price increase may make the standalone Disney+ subscription harder to justify at precisely the moment the company is making Hulu easier to access through Disney+. Disney doesn’t need to eliminate standalone Hulu to steer subscribers toward a combined future. It can make the bundle attractive enough that customers choose it themselves, while gradually making the two services feel like parts of the same product.
The pricing does some of that work, and as more Hulu programming appears within Disney+, the distinction between the two becomes less important to the viewer. Disney+ has gone from trying to reach as many people as possible with a $6.99 price tag to asking those same subscribers to consider a $21.49 premium subscription. At that price, the question isn’t simply whether Disney+ is worth it anymore.
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