Netflix’s new ad tier is set to launch in the U.S. at 9 a.m. PT on Thursday, introducing commercials to the service for the first time in its 15-year history. Starting Thursday, the ad plan will be available in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, the U.K., and the U.S. It will then launch in Spain on Nov. 10.
At $6.99 per month, Netflix Basic with Ads costs less than half of Netflix’s $15.49 Standard plan and almost a third less than its ad-free $9.99 Basic plan.
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In exchange for that lower price tag, subscribers who switch to the ad-supported plan will have to watch an average of five minutes of ads per hour that are set to play before and during movies and TV shows. At launch, ads will be 15 to 30 seconds in length.
During an October press call, Netflix chief operating officer and product chief Greg Peters said that new movies coming to Netflix “will just have a pre-roll” of ads followed by an uninterrupted viewing experience in order to “preserve that cinematic model.” He added that movies that have “been on the service for a while” will have a more “traditional” mix of pre-roll and mid-roll ads.
There are a few other additional drawbacks to the ad tier. Like its ad-free Basic plan, Basic with Ads has a lower video quality than Netflix’s Standard and Premium plans. Basic with Ads subscribers also won’t be able to download series and films to their devices for offline viewing, and won’t have access to about 5% to 10% of Netflix’s content catalog due to licensing restrictions. Peters said in October that the missing titles will be “a very small minority of viewing” that the company will work to reduce over time.
Netflix’s ad tier is cheaper than those of a number of its fellow streamers. Disney+ and Hulu’s ad plans will both be $7.99 per month when Disney+’s ad tier launches in December, while HBO Max with ads is $9.99 per month.
