Netflix‘s ad-supported tier launches in eight countries today. Called the Basic With Ads plan, the launch marks the first time Netflix has ever included ads on its service. And with no downloads allowed and only one streaming screen available, it’s shaping up to be an entirely alien Netflix viewing experience, though nothing subscribers haven’t seen on other streaming services before.
Basic With Ads became available in the U.S., UK, Australia, Japan, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, and South Korea at 12 pm ET on November 3. Canada and Mexico were the first to get the plan. Spain will have access starting November 10. Here’s everything you need to know about the new plan, including its prices that vary by country.
How much does Netflix’s Basic With Ads plan cost?
In the U.S., the Netflix ad-supported tier will cost $6.99/month for subscribers. It’s one dollar lower than Disney+‘s upcoming $7.99 ad tier, launching December 8. The other Netflix subscription prices are $9.99/month for Basic, $15.49/month for Standard, and $19.99/month for premium.
What is included in Netflix’s Basic With Ads plan?
Per Deadline, Basic With Ads users will watch titles in 720p resolution, are limited to one streaming screen at a time, and will have no downloads. Standard subscription viewers get 1080p resolution with many titles available in 4K, plus the ability to have multiple concurrent streams.
The streamer will also soon be launching its password sharing fees, which could cost $2.99 for users allowing people to use their account outside of their designated Netflix Household.
How long will Netflix ads be?
The ads will play either before the start of a program or throughout it. There will be about 4-to-5 minutes of ads per hour with the ads running 15 or 30 seconds in length at launch. Ads will run during both movies and TV shows, but exclusive film premieres like Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery will only have ads at the front end.
Netflix chief operating officer and product chief Greg Peters said in a Thursday statement that this new tier is “a pro-consumer model,” per Deadline. The streamer hopes this new offering will draw in “a lot more members” after it lost subscribers for the first time in a decade earlier this year, per an April 2022 letter to shareholders. Keeping ads at the beginning of new film releases, Peters said, is their attempt to “preserve that sort of cinematic model” like other streaming services.
Launching this new subscription tier required Netflix to renegotiate contracts with titles. As a result, 5% to 10% of Netflix’s typical programming will be absent on the new subscription at the time of launch, but Peters said that missing chunk is “a small minority of viewing.”
Which programs stay and which go is all dependent on the state of the individual contracts and subsequent negotiations. “It’s not a specific studio,” Peters said. “It’s mostly about what the state of the deal was and, again, we’ll work to reduce that number over time.” Movies that have long been on Netflix (and will remain post-Basic With Ads launch) will have pre-roll and mid-roll ads that Peters said will be “less frequent.”
Expect lots of beer and car ads for now, as well as ads for fast-casual restaurants, travel, and consumer packaged goods. There will be no political ads nor ads for guns, smoking, or any other product Netflix finds inappropriate.
