Netflix could raise prices AGAIN: Customers of ad-free services are set to be hit a few months after the Hollywood actor strike ends

Netflix plans to increase prices for its ad-free service to make up for revenue lost during the Hollywood actors’ strike, a report says.

The streaming giant will release the price hike “a few months” after the strike ends, which could happen this month.

The ad-free Standard plan costs $15.49 per month, while the Premium plan costs $19.99.

A union of more than 15,000 TV and film actors began the strike in July to demand more wages and residual payments from streaming services.

Netflix has felt the brunt of delaying the release of popular shows like Stranger Things, now scheduled for release in 2025.

Other streaming services were also forced to issue delays, with HBO postponing The Last of Us and Hulu having to postpone A Handmaid’s Tale.

DailyMail.com has contacted Netflix.

The Wall Street Journal Reports indicate that the increase will likely start in the US and Canada first.

Findlay Wilson, managing director of Energy PR, warned this month that Netflix could suffer serious damage to its reputation due to ongoing Hollywood jabs – because it has been branded as the ultimate “villain” in the narrative.

The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), which represents nearly 160,000 actors, has been on strike since failing to reach an agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) over concerns about waste. And the use of artificial intelligence.

They follow the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike since May 2.

Netflix has been forced to postpone at least 43 shows and movies due to the strike.

It seems that customers of the live streaming platform will have to pay for their losses.

Netflix users already felt “betrayed” by the company when it banned password sharing in May.

Customers who pay for the Standard or Premium plans — which cost $15.50 to $20 per month — can share their login credentials with someone for an additional $8 per month, a $2 discount from the company’s standard standalone Basic plan.

Without providing details on how subscribers’ identities or accounts will be authenticated, Netflix confirmed that everyone living in the same household will still be able to stream TV series and movies “wherever they are — at home, on the go, on vacation.”

The long-awaited move has been looming in the US since Netflix unveiled it in 2021 to end lost revenue — Citibank estimated the company lost $6 billion a year from password sharing.

While Netflix did not share its lost revenue, it revealed in January that “widely account engagement” had surpassed more than 100 million viewers.

Those passwords were passed through Netflix’s 232.5 million paid subscribers around the world, who generated the bulk of the company’s $32 billion in revenue last year.

But a year of weak subscriber growth included the biggest loss of customers in more than a decade.

Netflix said 2022 was a “difficult year” due to its first subscriber loss in more than a decade, with its customer base falling by 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter.