Netflix Just Raised The Price Of Its Most Popular Plan

Netflix is raising its price on its Standard plan to $9.99 per month, up $1, the company revealed Thursday.

For a few time, analysts of the company believed the subscription video-on-demand service would need to raise prices to fund its aggressive TV program development and acquisition costs.

Netflix made a similar price increase in Europe this August, upping its standard plan one euro (from €8.99 to €9.99 – or a bit over $11). Netflix Inc. partnered with Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp. for the Japan launch of its video-streaming service on September 2, 2015.

Netflix claims the increase in subscription cost is going to help the USA firm is generate more exclusive content.

This change will affect new customers in the US, Canada, and portions of Latin America.

To boot, Netflix continues to advance its 200-country expansion plan by the end of 2016.

Netflix is betting that most consumers are willing to pay an extra $1 a month to binge on “House of Cards” and “Orange is the New Black”.

According to Bloomberg, the plans allowing for one-screen viewing and four-screening viewing will not be affected, and those rates will remain steady at $7.99 and $11.99, respectively, for now.

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The news about the price increase is not expected to have any detrimental effect on the company regarding competition, since even with the price increase the subscription plan still costs lower than HBO Now and Hulu’s ad free version. This year alone, Netflix introduced more than two dozen new series or films, including “Narcos”, a popular crime drama focusing on the life of Pablo Escobar and his Medellin drug cartel.

Existing members get a slight reprieve and will keep their current price for a year, the company said. Netflix is spending $4.3 billion in programming over the next year and over $5 billion over the next three years.