Netflix Will Charge One Dollar More for Its Standard Plan

The increase won't hit existing customers---yet.
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Netflix headquarters in Los Gatos, California, Tuesday, July 8, 2014. (Paul Sakuma Photography) www.paulsakuma.comPaul Sakuma

For some new customers, Netflix will soon be a little more expensive.

As first reported by Bloomberg, Netflix will be raising its monthly subscription price from $8.99 to $9.99 for new customers for its standard package, which allows two people to use the service at the same time. The company also offers a basic package for a single user at $7.99 and a family plan for four screens to watch simultaneously for $11.99.

"To continue adding more TV shows and movies including many Netflix original titles, we are modestly raising the price for some new members in the U.S., Canada, and Latin America," a Netflix spokesperson said in a statement. "As a thank you to existing Netflix members—who aren’t already benefiting from a previous price guarantee—we will maintain their current price for a year."

This is not the first time that the company has raised prices. Last year, Netflix raised the rate of its standard plan by $1 from $7.99 to $8.99 per month and added the single-user plan. (At the time, customers who were already paying $7.99 were guaranteed that rate for two more years.) Netflix also raised its subscription price by one euro for new customers earlier this year across several European countries.

An extra buck a month will likely not dissuade diehard Netflix lovers. But it does show that price continues to be a sensitive subject for Netflix.

During the company's earnings call this summer, Netflix founder and CEO Reed Hastings was asked if the current price points were, well, right.

"Over the last year, we've raised [average sales price] about 5 percent. We'd like to keep that moving. We're going to continue to have incentives for people to move up in the plans as suits their usage pattern, but we want to take it very slow. Things are going well, there's no reason to be disruptive," Hastings said in the July earnings call.

"Over the next decade, I think we will be able to have more and more content and add more value, and then to be able to price that appropriately."