Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL;DR
- The Netflix Basic plan was the cheapest without ads, costing $10 per month in the US.
- Netflix has just eliminated this plan.
- You can still keep the plan, but if you change your subscription in any way, you’ll lose it.
For years now, the cheapest way to get ad-free Netflix has been to use the Basic subscription plan. For $10 each month, you get access to all of Netflix in an ad-free state with one concurrent stream in HD quality. A cheaper option landed when the company rolled out its Standard with Ads plan, which slashed a few dollars from the monthly cost and brought you two concurrent streams at 1080p, but threw in advertisements.
Now, that $10 Netflix Basic plan is ending. Its current Plans and Pricing page shows only three tiers: Standard with Ads ($6.99), Standard ($15.49), and Premium ($19.99). This change is also happening in the United Kingdom.
The good news is that if you currently subscribe to the Basic plan, nothing changes for you. You can keep enjoying Netflix content ad-free for $10 each month. However, if you make any changes to your subscription, you will lose access to this tier. That means if you suspend your account or temporarily switch to a different tier, you can’t go back.
Of course, it’s likely only a matter of time before Netflix kills this grace period. We expect the company to slowly boot subscribers from the Basic plan. We just don’t know if or when that would begin.
Whenever you end your connection to the Basic plan, you’ll need to then decide to pay substantially more each month for the Standard or Premium plans or pay less but deal with ads. Of course, this is what Netflix wants. Either way, it wins: it’s either making more money from you directly or profiting off your ad views.
Of course, there is another option, which is to cancel Netflix.