Hulu is lowering the price of its cheapest subscription plan

Hulu is lowering the price of its basic plan just a week after Netflix raised the price of theirs.

Hulu said Wednesday that the price of its cheapest plan would be reduced from $7.99 per month to $5.99 per month, The Verge reports. This is the Hulu plan with commercials; getting rid of ads will still cost $11.99. The streaming service is, however, raising the price of one of its plans: the live TV package, which will now cost $44.99 rather than $39.99. These changes will be implemented at the end of February.

Like Hulu, Netflix's cheapest plan used to be $7.99, but that will soon go up to $8.99, meaning a basic Hulu account will now cost $3 less per month than a basic Netflix account. The key difference, though, is that no Netflix plan includes advertisements. These are just the latest shots Hulu has fired at Netflix after previously dropping a documentary about Fyre Festival days before Netflix was able to release its own.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

As The Verge notes, changes are likely to come to Hulu in the coming year, as Disney is set to take majority ownership over the platform. Disney currently owns a 30 percent stake in the company, as does Fox — Disney will take over those shares once the company finalizes its purchase of Fox. Disney also plans to introduce the new streaming service Disney+ in late 2019.