Disney has raised the monthly cost of most Disney+ and Hulu subscriptions, placing each standalone ad-free service at $21.49 per month. The new prices apply to new subscribers immediately, while current customers will see the change on their next monthly bill.
The increase arrives one year after the company’s prior price rise. On its own, the change is straightforward: ad-supported standalone Disney+ and Hulu subscriptions each rise by 50 cents, while their ad-free counterparts increase by $2.50. The more revealing detail is where Disney has chosen not to raise a price. Its ad-supported Disney+ and Hulu bundle remains $12.99 per month.
That leaves the combined ad-supported package just 50 cents above the $12.49 monthly price of either standalone service with advertising. For viewers who want both libraries, the decision is being framed less as whether to bundle and more as whether to accept advertisements. It is a pricing structure that strongly favors the bundle without ads being the only factor driving the choice.
What the new Disney+ and Hulu prices are
Here is the revised monthly lineup provided for the affected Disney+, Hulu, ESPN, and HBO Max packages:
- Disney+ with ads: $12.49, up from $11.99
- Disney+ without ads: $21.49, up from $18.99
- Hulu with ads: $12.49, up from $11.99
- Hulu without ads: $21.49, up from $18.99
- Disney+ and Hulu bundle with ads: $12.99, unchanged
- Disney+ and Hulu bundle without ads: $21.99, up from $19.99
- Disney+, ESPN, and Hulu bundle with ads: $21.99, up from $19.99
- Disney+ without ads, Hulu without ads, and ESPN Select with ads: $32.99, up from $29.99
- Disney+, Hulu, and HBO Max Basic with ads: $21.99, up from $19.99
- Disney+, Hulu, and HBO Max Basic without ads: $34.99, up from $32.99
The numbers create an unusually sharp comparison. A viewer paying for Disney+ with ads alone can spend $12.49 monthly, or spend $12.99 for both Disney+ and Hulu with ads. The same basic math applies without ads: Disney+ or Hulu alone costs $21.49, while the no-ad Disney+ and Hulu bundle costs $21.99.
In practical terms, paying an extra 50 cents for the paired offering gives a subscriber access to the second service. That does not mean every household needs both catalogs. It does mean subscribers should look closely at their existing plan before accepting the next bill, particularly if they maintain separate Disney+ and Hulu subscriptions.
The bundle is the obvious value signal
Bundling is the practice of selling multiple services together for less than the combined standalone price. It is a familiar move across subscription businesses, but Disney’s current pricing makes the strategy exceptionally visible.
For someone subscribing separately to Disney+ and Hulu with ads, the total would now be $24.98 each month. The ad-supported bundle is $12.99. For the ad-free standalone pair, the individual total would be $42.98, versus $21.99 for the no-ad bundle. Those comparisons are simple arithmetic, but they show exactly why the unchanged $12.99 ad-supported package is central to the increase rather than a minor footnote.
Disney has also been bringing Hulu programming into the Disney+ app as part of an all-in-one experience. The pricing and product direction therefore point in the same direction: make the combined service experience and the combined subscription more appealing than treating Disney+ and Hulu as fully separate destinations.
That does not make the bundle automatically right for every viewer. A household that only uses one library may decide that a standalone plan remains the cleaner choice. But a subscriber who already alternates between the two services, or who keeps both active, now has a strong financial reason to examine whether a bundle provides the same access pattern at a lower monthly cost.
Ads are no longer merely an optional extra
The updated prices also highlight the widening divide between advertising-supported and ad-free streaming. Disney+ launched in November 2019 at $6.99 per month, without advertising. The service’s ad-supported option arrived in 2022. Today, the company offers a lower-priced ad tier, but the no-ad option costs substantially more than the original launch price.
“Ad-supported” means advertising is included during viewing in exchange for a lower monthly subscription charge. “Ad-free,” in the context of these plans, refers to the higher-priced option positioned around avoiding those ads. The financial trade-off is no longer subtle: on the standalone services, ad-free Disney+ and Hulu each cost $9 more per month than their ad-supported equivalents.
That $9 monthly gap is $108 over a year for one service, before considering any other streaming subscriptions a household may hold. A viewer deciding between the two is not only choosing a playback experience; they are choosing whether avoiding ads is worth a recurring annual premium.
The same pressure appears within the Disney+ and Hulu package. The ad-supported bundle remains $12.99 monthly, while the no-ad version is $21.99, a difference of $9 each month. The figures make advertising-supported subscriptions the clear budget tier and ad-free viewing a premium purchase.
What changed, and what did not
The headline increase is largest for standalone ad-free Disney+ and Hulu, which each move from $18.99 to $21.49. That is a $2.50 rise. The Disney+ and Hulu ad-supported plans rise from $11.99 to $12.49, a 50-cent change.
Bundles connected to ESPN or HBO Max also rise, generally by $2 to $3 per month. The Disney+, Hulu, and HBO Max Basic bundle with ads is now $21.99, up from $19.99, while its no-ad counterpart is $34.99, up from $32.99. The listed package containing ad-free Disney+, ad-free Hulu, and ESPN Select with ads rises to $32.99 from $29.99.
The standout exception is the Disney+ and Hulu bundle with ads, which stays at $12.99. Its unchanged price matters because it sits so close to the price of a single advertising-supported service. Rather than simply charging more across the board, Disney is maintaining a low entry point for viewers who combine its two central entertainment services and accept ads.
From launch price to today’s premium tier
Disney+ entered the market in November 2019 at $6.99 per month. At that time, there was no ad-supported tier. The current $21.49 no-ad price is more than 200% higher than that launch figure in nearly seven years.
That comparison needs a little context. The original Disney+ plan was not presented alongside today’s distinct ad-supported and ad-free choices, so it is not a perfect like-for-like comparison of two identical plans. It does, however, clearly illustrate the scale of the price movement for subscribers seeking an experience without advertising.
Disney is not alone in raising streaming prices over time. Apple’s streaming television service launched around the same period at $4.99 per month and is now $14.99, also a 200% increase. Netflix and HBO Max have raised prices regularly as well. The wider pattern does not lessen the cost to an individual subscriber, but it helps explain why households increasingly need to compare plans, rotate subscriptions, or choose a service bundle rather than viewing each platform in isolation.
Streaming is also part of a larger entertainment-business conversation about how media companies turn large libraries, brands, and audience relationships into sustainable recurring revenue. That broader discussion is visible in coverage of Hollywood’s evolving business and technology priorities, even though subscription prices remain a distinct consumer issue.
How subscribers can assess the increase
There is no single best plan because the right answer depends on what a household watches and whether it considers advertising acceptable. Still, the new structure gives subscribers a short, useful checklist.
- Check whether Disney+ and Hulu are both already active. If so, compare the separate monthly total with the relevant bundle price.
- Decide how much ad-free viewing is worth. The gap between the ad-supported and ad-free version of a standalone Disney+ or Hulu service is now $9 per month.
- Look at every service included in a larger package. ESPN and HBO Max bundles may be useful only if the included services are actually being watched.
- Note the billing timing. New subscribers face the prices now; existing monthly subscribers will encounter them on their next bill.
The most important distinction is between sticker price and actual value to the subscriber. A more expansive bundle can be cheaper than a narrow standalone plan, yet still be unnecessary if the additional catalog is not used. Conversely, someone routinely subscribing to both Disney+ and Hulu could find the bundle difficult to ignore at the current numbers.
Disney’s latest pricing changes make that calculation more direct. The company has raised most plans, raised ad-free access far more than ad-supported access, and left the ad-backed Disney+ and Hulu bundle untouched. For consumers, the practical message is clear: the lowest-cost route to both services is to take the bundle and the ads; the route away from both costs considerably more.
