Apple TV Raises Its Price Again: $14.99 a Month, Triple What It Cost at Launch

Four Hikes in Four Years

It is the fourth increase in four years for the service formerly known as Apple TV+, and a milestone of sorts: the monthly fee has now tripled from the $4.99 launch price of 2019, when Apple was buying its way into streaming with a thin catalog and aggressive pricing.

The bundle is going up too. Apple One's individual tier, which packages Apple TV with Apple Music, iCloud+, Apple Arcade, Apple News+ and Apple Fitness+, rises from $19.95 to $21.95 per month.

Everyone Is Doing It

Apple's move follows what has become a streaming-industry ritual. Netflix, HBO Max, Disney+, Hulu, Paramount+ and YouTube Premium have all raised prices within the last two years; Peacock did it earlier this month, and ESPN's streaming prices go up September 17. The era of loss-leader streaming pricing is over across the board, and subscribers are footing the correction.

Apple's justification is the catalog it built along the way: more than 300 originals, up from a handful at launch. The roster now spans comedies "Ted Lasso," "The Studio" and "Shrinking," this year's most-Emmy-nominated freshman series "Widow's Bay," dramas "Severance," "Pluribus" and "The Morning Show," and films including the Oscar-winning "CODA" and "F1: The Movie," the highest-grossing sports movie ever at the global box office. Live sports round it out: Formula 1, Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer.

What Comes Next

For subscribers the math is familiar: $2 more a month, or $24 a year, with the annual plan now the only meaningful discount. The open question is the same one facing every streamer that keeps raising prices: at what point does the ritual start costing more subscribers than it earns. So far, the industry's answer has been to keep testing.