Netflix Password-Sharing Charge Revealed

Netflix is now charging an extra fee for subscribers to share their password with friends or family, but it may still save you some money. The pricing structure looks a little different from the earliest reports, but it is still relatively cheap – especially when compared to opening a brand new account. Here’s a simple breakdown of the new cost of shared accounts, who is eligible, and how you can set them up.

After months of warning that this change was coming, Netflix announced on Tuesday, May 23 that users in the U.S. will no longer be able to share their passwords with friends and family for free. They can now opt to pay an addition fee of $7.99 per month on top of their usual subscription price in order to allow a second “household” to access their account. The price for an additional household is the same no matter what subscription tier they have, although the number of additional households they are allowed to add will vary. Out of the four plans Netflix offers, users on the cheapest two plans will not be allowed to add households at all. Users on the “Standard” plan can add one additional household to their account while users on the “Premium” plan can add up to two additional households.

Previous reports had speculated that paying for an additional household might cost less, making it worthwhile for groups to pool their funds for the service. Now, a shared profile costs more than the cheapest plan Netflix offers. Users will save little compared to purchasing their own plan, though they will get access to some of the streamer’s perks that they might not have shelled out for on their own.

For those that need a refresher, Netflix’s subscription plans start at $6.99 per month for the “Standard with ads” package. That gets you video quality of 1080p and the ability to watch on all eligible devices, but no downloads for offline viewing. It also means you’ll have to watch periodic commercial breaks while streaming. The “Basic” plan costs $9.99 per month to eliminate the ads and enable downloads, though it only offers video quality of 720p. The Standard tier is $15.49 per month, offers downloads, 1080p resolution, and the option to add an additional household to your plan for $7.99 per month. Presumably, that extra household would get all the same features as the account holder.

Finally, the “Premium” plan costs $19.99 per month and offers the best possible video quality as well as downloads and all available devices. With the Premium plan, a subscriber can choose to share their account with two additional households, paying a fee of $7.99 per month for each of them. This would bring their total Netflix bill to about $36 per month. That means for $12 per month each, three households can enjoy the benefits of Netflix’s Premium plan, possibly saving some money in some specific situations.

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It’s worth noting that a shared account still has limits on how many people can watch Netflix separately at the same time. With the Basic and Standard with ads plans, only one screen can be playing at a time, while the Standard plan can play two screens at a time. The Premium plan can play a maximum of four screens at a time, but if three families are sharing the account with multiple users in each household, that limit could be easy to hit.

Netflix enacted this new policy in response to dwindling subscriber growth, which was previously an important metric it used to measure its success and build confidence among shareholders. It’s unclear how shared households will factor into future presentations about subscriber growth. Netflix has not responded directly to the wave of fan outcry over this policy on social media.