If you’ve been thinking about adding a Disney+ subscription to your roster of streaming platforms, now could be the ideal time if you want to keep costs down. The streaming platform, home to popular TV shows such as The Bear, Paradise and Alien Earth, is increasing the price of its annual subscription by £10 from 30 September. This means new customers will now pay £99.90 a year on the Disney+ annual standard plan.
Fortunately, new customers aren’t locked in to these prices just yet. If you sign up before 30 September, you’ll pay £89.90 for the annual standard plan, which will enable you to watch ad-free, stream on up to two devices at a time and download content on up to 10 devices.
I’ve rounded up everything you need to know about the price hike, how to choose the right subscription option for you, plus my favourite saving hacks to reduce the cost of your Disney+ subscription. Keep scrolling for all the details.
From Tuesday 30 September, Disney+ is raising the cost of its annual standard subscription by 11 per cent. This means you’ll pay £99.90 for a year’s access to Disney+ TV shows and films, working out at about £8.33 a month. However, if you sign up before the price hike, you’ll pay £89.90 a year, which equates to £7.49 a month.
The annual plan isn’t the only option when it comes to Disney+ subscriptions. There is the option to pay monthly and, as it stands, these prices are set to stay the same. If you don’t mind watching with ads included, this is the cheapest option, as you’ll pay £4.99 a month, which works out at £59.88 for the year. Meanwhile, the standard ad-free plan costs £8.99 a month (£107.88 a year). Of course, there is the option to cancel on a monthly plan, so you won’t necessarily end up paying for a whole year’s subscription.
So should you shell out almost £90 for a year-long Disney+ subscription? If you’re currently on the monthly subscription, regularly tune in to Disney+ and want to watch without ads, I’d say it’s worth it to lock in the cheaper price for a year.
However, if you’re new to Disney+ or you’re only signing up to watch a specific film or TV show, I’d pay £4.99 to try it for a month and see if it’s for you – even if you have to put up with a few ads. If you want to keep on watching after a month, there are still a few ways to save, which I have outlined below.
Sign up with Tesco Clubcard
If you’ve got Tesco Clubcard vouchers waiting to be spent, you can put them towards a Disney+ subscription. With £13.50 worth of Clubcard vouchers (or £7.50 to watch with ads), you’ll get a three-month standard Disney+ subscription, which is plenty of time to tune in to the latest box sets and new Hollywood releases. This offer isn’t just limited to new customers, either – if you have Clubcard vouchers going spare once the three months are up, you can sign up again for a subscription of the same length.
Sign up with O2
Whether you’re a new O2 customer or you’re upgrading with the mobile operator, you can get up to six months of a standard Disney+ subscription included in your plan. With O2’s ‘ultimate plan’, one of its pricier options, you can get a Disney+ premium subscription included as an extra, for the length of your plan.
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Rotate your subscriptions
This is one of my favourite ways to reduce the cost of all streaming subscriptions, not just Disney+. Rather than paying subscription fees for all the main streaming platforms at once, I’ll sign up to one or two, tune in to everything on my ‘to watch’ list, and then cancel before moving over to another. This does mean you might miss out on a TV show as soon as it’s out, but if you can keep ahead of new releases, you can time your subscriptions accordingly.
