How much could Netflix charge if a subscription included HBO Max?
Here’s what streaming companies, many of which offer streaming bundles, charge now.
Netflix has agreed to buy Warner Bros. Discovery’s studio and streaming businesses in one of the biggest acquisitions of the year — one that could shake up the entertainment industry and also greatly affect regular customers. Pending regulatory hurdles, Netflix says it plans to combine Warner Bros.’ vast content library — including HBO programming and the 100-year-plus portfolio of Warner Bros. films — into its own dominant streaming platform rather than operate the services separately.
“This acquisition will improve our offering and accelerate our business for decades to come,” co-CEO Greg Peters said in a press release.
For customers, who are surely happy to get titles like “Citizen Kane” and “Harry Potter,” the key question is: How much will this cost?
Streaming services have been steadily ratcheting up prices in recent years. They’ve also increasingly turned to bundles — pairing services like Paramount+ and Apple TV+ or Disney, Hulu, and HBO Max at a discount — as a way to compete.
Netflix, however, has been notably resistant to first-party bundles, and this deal doesn’t suggest a change in strategy. Instead of offering HBO Max as a separate subscription, Netflix appears poised to integrate the content directly into its core service. And because HBO Max’s audience significantly overlaps with Netflix’s, the acquisition won’t meaningfully expand Netflix’s reach. The likeliest lever left for the company is pricing — though how high it might go remains unclear.
As Disney CEO Bob Iger said on a recent earnings call announcing the coming merger of Disney+ and Hulu into a single app: “I imagine down the road, it may give us some price elasticity as well that we haven’t had before.”
Here’s where the prices of existing streaming services stand:
