Brace yourselves – ads are coming…to Netflix. The streaming platform has formally bid farewell to its ‘no ads’ policy and announced today its first ad-supported plan in an official blogpost.
The ‘Basic with Ads’ (as if Netflix could have devised a more unappealing name) plan will cost US users just $6.99 per month, a full $3 less than the current entry-level option, and will be available in the beginning of November.
According to Netflix, the ‘Basic with Ads’ plan will bring the best of what Netflix has to offer, at a much lower price tag. Naturally, however, there are a number of caveats.
As indicated by the name, users will have to stomach a barrage of ads both before and during their favorite Netflix titles. The ads are going to be between 15 and 30 seconds in length, with an average total ad time of about 4-5 minutes per hour.
For reference, this means that users could be forced to watch up to 20 ads in the span of a single episode of a TV show.
However, this is not the only downside of Netflix’s new subscription plan. Because of legal reasons, a number of titles will not be available at launch and users will not have the option to watch any content offline.
In a nutshell, you will be getting a decidedly less pleasant viewing experience, a smaller library to choose from and the detriment of always having to rely on a stable network connection. Quite a steep price to pay in order to save $3.
At the very least, the video quality will remain in line with what users would find on the standard Netflix ‘Basic’ plan (i.e. up to 720p or HD). Lastly, the new subscription tier will not affect existing plans.
The ‘Basic with Ads’ plan will launch on November 3 at 9 am PT and will be available in 12 countries.