From two to four euros more for a subscription: is the platform really thinking about a rate increase? Here's the truth
It would seem that Netflix wants to propose a rate hike to new customers. This is what emerges from the official website, where these days you can see a series of new prices for each type of subscription. While the Base fee would remain at €7.99 per month, those Standard and Premium would cost respectively two and four euros more.
Despite the price increase, many users have still chosen to subscribe to the platform. But once they completed the procedure, they realized that the price increase was just a sham. It would seem that for the moment Netflix does not want to increase the rates, but simply understand if users are willing to pay more to subscribe to the service. On the other hand, the offer of content has increased significantly in the last year, but the prices have always been the same. Probably Netflix really intends to increase the rates but for the moment it has not made any decision about it.
Why Netflix pretends to increase prices
The platform of movies and TV series is not new to these procedures: already in July 2018 it had tested the possibility of increasing prices for new accounts. In the summer, however, the platform had limited itself to showing the new possible rates in the appropriate form without further reminders. These days, however, the user realizes that he did not spend more only after payment. Even though in the box on the home page and throughout the check-out phase the rates are higher than normal, once the payment is finished the user realizes that he has not paid more than the old subscribers.
The company's goal is to understand how much customers are willing to pay to watch the extensive catalog of TV series, movies, documentaries and other programs.
Netflix's new rates
Still, the channel offers three different types of subscriptions: a Basic one at €7.99 that allows you to watch streaming videos on a single device and offers a maximum SD resolution; a Standard one at €10.99 to watch Netflix on two monitors with a max res. Full HD; and a Premium subscription for €13.99 that can be enjoyed on four devices simultaneously with a max res. 4K +HDR.
In the tests released in these days by Netflix are instead shown two alternatives. The first offers a Basic subscription always at a cost of €7.99 while the Standard and Premium ones are €12.99 and €17.99 respectively. The second alternative offers instead a Basic subscription at 8,99€ (one euro more than the others), Standard at 12,99€ and finally Premium at 16,99€.
Netflix is therefore measuring the temperature of the users, but it is not yet known if the rates will increase or not. In the U.S. the subscription has actually increased in recent months, at the same time, however, many original content and new productions have been added to the catalog.