Disney+ · B2C · family streaming service
Launch at $5 a month with free carrier bundles, then raise prices
About 100M subscribers fast, but revenue per subscriber lagged Netflix
Mixedpricingpartnerships
What they did
Disney+ launched at about $5/month, was given free to many Verizon customers via a partnership, offered heavily discounted annual plans at launch, and bundled with ESPN+ and Hulu. Price increases came later once growth slowed.
What happened
Reached about 100 million subscribers very quickly, but revenue per subscriber was well behind Netflix; later price increases drew press backlash.
“I think Disney launched at a really low price point and a lot of people were getting Disney+ for free as part of Verizon. They had like a pretty big partnership with them. They had really discounted annual plans at launch, if I remember correctly.”
“And I think if you looked under the covers, the revenue per subscription wasn't quite there.”
Related topics
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New tactics from the week's founder interviews, each linked to where it was said.
More from Disney+
All 7 Disney+ tactics- Build your own event tracking, keep Adobe as a backup, then drop Adobe~$1K/day in-house vs ~$33K/day for Adobe; Adobe removed within weeks
- Email the boss three bullet points by noon each day instead of dashboardsThe president stopped needing dashboards; no numbers
- Log one generic 'button clicked' event with keys, not a new event per featureGuest says it avoided costly renames and merges; still in use years later
- Group viewers by household, like parents or single adults, not by fan typeHousehold groups predicted behavior better; over half the audience were single adults
- Move a show with near-100% completion up from the last row of the home screen
More from this episode
- Crunchyroll: Hold the price for years while you grow subscribers every other wayGrew from 200K to 12M+ paid subscribers; first price rise after 6-7 years
- Crunchyroll: Change your brand's tone to welcome newcomers, not just diehard fansCalled a big change behind subscriber growth; no separate numbers
- Crunchyroll: Sell merch, events and games to your most loyal subscribersLet it compete on fan relationship instead of the best video player
- Crunchyroll: Add the shows cancelled users asked for, then email them to come back
- Crunchyroll: Compare people who cancel in the first month with those who stay
- Crunchyroll: Survey what regular subscribers and your biggest fans would each paySomewhat helpful; people say different things than they do
- Substack: If your retention beats your peers by a lot, raise your priceSome writers keep 90% of subscribers after a year yet never change price
- Crunchyroll: Raise the price $1-2 for existing subscribers too, not just new onesLittle churn from existing subscribers; new signups dip somewhat
- Disney+: Announce a price rise weeks before big new releases, effective after they startPress backlash at announcement; no subscriber numbers given
- Substack: Offer a top tier where fans choose their own priceMany fans pay well above the regular price