Recently, Apple announced yet another price hike for its Apple TV+ service. This time, it’s increasing 30% from $9.99/month to $12.99/month. After the service launched in 2019 at $4.99/month, its received a couple price hikes. This new price hike, though, likely opens the door to something Apple has reportedly been considering for quite a while – an ad-supported plan.
Apple TV+ price history
As mentioned earlier, Apple TV+ started off at $4.99/month when the service first launched in 2019. It even had a generous 1 year free trial window if you bought a new Apple device. This was to get people’s foot in the door, as the service had a much weaker catalog at the time.
Now, Apple TV+ has had many big hits over the years – like Severance, Ted Lasso, The Morning Show, and many others. The company has gradually raised the price, to $6.99 in 2022, and to $9.99 in 2023. It took a break last year, but now it’s up once again, to $12.99 in 2025.
Previously, the company announced price increases for its Apple One subscription bundle when increasing the price of TV+, but it didn’t do that this time around – making that service an even better value.
Apple TV+ has always been an ad-free service with family sharing, both when it was $4.99, and even now when it’s $12.99 – but that could potentially change.
Ad-supported tier?
There have been numerous rumors over the years about Apple working on an ad-supported tier for Apple TV+, with the most recent report being last year. Apple has also hired a number of advertising executives from other companies, seemingly suggesting that an ad-supported TV+ tier is in the works.
With the new Apple TV+ price tag of $12.99/month – I think it opens a perfect opportunity for Apple to launch an ad-supported tier at $6.99/month. This falls roughly in line with what Disney+ does, where its standalone ad-free plan is $15.99/month, and its ad-supported plan is $9.99/month. That $6 price gap seems to resonate well with consumers.
In the future, I could also see Apple charging a premium for family sharing if they’d like to gain additional revenue from Apple TV+, though I doubt this is in the cards anytime soon.
Wrap up
Overall, this new price hike makes it feel increasingly likely that we’ll see an ad-supported TV+ tier in the near future.
Top comment by Blake
Definitely don’t like the price hike, but ads are even worse.
What do you think of the possibility of an ad-supported TV+ plan? Would you pay $6.99/month for it, or is that too steep? Let us know in a comments.
You can subscribe to Apple TV+ with a 7 day free trial right here if you haven’t already checked out some of its incredible shows. It’ll be $12.99/month afterwards, though some users are seeing discounts if they do end up cancelling.
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