Netflix Unveils New All Ads Tier, Raises Price for Standard Plan
Netflix announced Friday it will raise the price of its "Standard with Ads" plan by one dollar, citing "enhanced value delivery through refined viewing intervals." The company also introduced a new budget-friendly option called "All Ads," which offers subscribers access to the complete Netflix interface minus actual programming.
“All Ads includes our entire standard content library,” said Netflix spokesperson Benji Watchin. “It just skips the parts that don’t generate us revenue.”
Early testers report a continuous stream of advertisements, punctuated occasionally by brief flashes of loading screens from popular shows before cutting back to commercial offers. The plan is priced at $4.99 per month.
Company executives said the tier was entirely driven by user behavior data. "We saw a trend of people opening the app, not knowing what to watch, and scrolling through previews for twenty minutes," Watchin explained. "This plan is a natural evolution of our service."
The All Ads tier is being positioned as ideal for viewers who "just want something on" without the distraction of story, characters, or plot development.
Netflix's content library remains unchanged for existing tiers, though the company noted that advertising segments now account for 34% of total viewing time across all plans. The Standard with Ads plan will include a 90-second trailer before each episode titled "Trust Me This Is Still a Good Deal."
When asked if the new offering marks a shift in Netflix's identity, executives pushed back. "We remain committed to storytelling," Watchin said. "We're just telling different kinds of stories now. Stories about laundry detergent. Stories about phone plans. Stories about moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis. You get the idea."
Watchin praised the simplicity of the All Ads tier. “You don’t have to remember what episode you’re on or where you left off last.” He continued, “Now you just let it run.”