Western European subscribers have faced the steepest streaming price rises western Europe has seen from Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video, outpacing every other region in the world over the past three years, according to research by Ampere Analysis.
The average monthly subscription cost across the three services rose by $1.86 in western Europe over that period. That is more than the US-only figure of $1.70, and more than North America as a whole at $1.79. Central and Eastern Europe saw average increases of $1.68, or 18%, over the same stretch.
At the other end of the scale, subscribers in sub-Saharan Africa faced average increases of less than $1 over three years, reflecting the influence of domestic competition and household income on how aggressively the platforms price each market.
The Economics Behind the Streaming Price Rises in Western Europe
The scale of individual price increases is nevertheless coming down. Deadline, citing Ampere’s research, reports that average rises across the three streamers have fallen from 24% of the previous subscription price in 2023-24 to 14% in 2025-26. In dollar terms, the average monthly increase across the three services dropped from $1.67 in 2023-24 to $1.54 in 2025-26.
Jaanika Juntson, a senior research manager at Ampere Analysis, attributed the moderation to changing business priorities. ‘The decline in price increases comes as streamers diversify how they monetise their audiences,’ she said. ‘As streaming businesses mature, revenue growth is becoming less reliant on price increases, while intense competition is also making streamers increasingly mindful of how they are positioned against rivals.’
That is the polite version. The blunter read is that consumers have simply had enough. The platforms have spent several years layering in advertising tiers, password-sharing crackdowns, and incremental price bumps. The ceiling, it turns out, is real.
Ad-free tiers have absorbed larger increases than ad-supported packages across all three services, which makes sense: cost-conscious subscribers have already migrated to the cheaper options. Squeezing the premium tier is the path of least resistance.
Netflix’s UK Business Crosses a Threshold
The pricing strategy is working, even if the individual increases are getting smaller. Screen Daily reports that Netflix passed £2bn in annual UK revenues for the first time in 2025, with the £2.06bn total representing an 11% rise on the £1.85bn reported the previous year. The company attributed the growth primarily to a 7% increase in average paid memberships, alongside higher average monthly revenue per paying member.
UK subscribers last saw prices move in February 2025, with the basic ad-supported package rising £1 to £5.99 a month and the standard ad-free tier up £2 to £12.99 a month. Those were the first increases since October 2023.
In the US, Netflix moved again in March 2026, its second increase since January 2025. CNBC reported that the Standard With Ads plan rose to $8.99 a month (from $7.99), the Standard plan to $19.99 (from $17.99), and the Premium plan to $26.99 (from $24.99).
Disney+ last raised prices in the UK in September last year, with its ad-supported tier at £5.99 a month and the standard ad-free package at £9.99, or £99.90 annually. Amazon, for its part, introduced a £2.99 monthly charge in February 2024 for Prime Video members who want to avoid adverts.
Zoom out and the industry’s financial momentum is not in doubt. Ampere Analysis estimates that global streaming subscription revenue grew 14% in 2025 to reach $157.1 billion, a figure that has tripled in five years and crossed the $150 billion mark for the first time.
I’d argue the more interesting question now is not whether prices will rise again, but where. Western Europe has absorbed the largest increases in the world and is showing signs of resistance. The US has been hit twice in fourteen months. The next leg of revenue growth will have to come from volume, from advertising yield, or from markets that have so far been treated more gently. The streamers know this. The moderation in price increases is not generosity; it is strategy.
Watch whether the ad-supported tiers, now the platforms’ primary growth tool, start commanding higher prices as subscriber bases stabilise. That is where the next squeeze will come from.
