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By Jack Beresford
Senior Reporter
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Paramount+ has become the latest streaming service to announce plans for increases to subscription prices, starting from January 2026.
The change was announced during the company’s third-quarter earnings shareholder letter on November 10. It comes as part of a major reorganization of the streaming service, 100 days after Paramount Global merged with Skydance Media to officially form Paramount, a Skydance Corporation.
"Our ongoing investments in Paramount+ are enhancing the value we deliver to consumers," CEO David Ellison said. "To support this continued investment, we plan to implement price increases in the U.S. early in the first quarter of 2026."
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Ellison used the letter to outline plans for a $1.5 billion incremental investment in programming over the course of 2026. This investment will include a focus on UFC, Paramount+ original programming, increasing the company’s film slate and third-party catalog licensing.
Ellison said the price increase will help "fuel continued reinvestment in the user experience and deliver an even-stronger slate of programming for our customers in the year ahead and beyond."
Under the changes, from January 15, 2026 those using the Essential (ad-supported) plan can expect prices to increase by $1 to $8.99 per month while the price of the Premium (ad-free) plan will rise by $1 to $13.99 per month.
Annual plan prices are also set to go up, with the Essential plan increasing to $89.99 per year and the Premium plan price moving to $139.99 per year.
The announcement came during a quarter in which Paramount+ added 1.4 million new subscribers to reach a total of 79 million on the platform. Direct-to-consumer revenue was also up 17 percent year-on-year, according to the quarterly earnings report, with the total of $2.1 billion driven by a 24 percent increase in revenue from Paramount+.
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There has been a backdrop of significant investment in the streaming service over the past 12 months. In July, South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone signed a five-year, $1.5 billion deal to make the show a Paramount+ exclusive.
In August, Paramount announced a seven-year deal worth $7.7 billion with UFC and WWE parent company TKO that will see Paramount+ become the new streaming home of UFC events in the U.S.
That same month, Paramount also signed Stranger Things creators the Duffer Brothers on an exclusive four-year deal covering film, TV and streaming projects, with the siblings set to make the switch from Netflix in April 2026, when their previous contract ends.
The Paramount+ price increase is the latest in a series of streaming price hikes witnessed over the course of 2025. In January, Discovery+ increased the cost of its ad-free and ad-supported plans.
That same month, Netflix raised the rates on most of its subscription tiers in the U.S. and Canada. The company had enjoyed a record-breaking quarter, so the rises sparked anger among subscribers.
In April, Dropout.tv announced plans to increase subscription prices for new users from May. In September, Disney also moved to increase all Disney+ subscription prices while, in October, HBO Max increased its prices across all tiers with immediate effect.
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