Netflix's new cheaper plan with ads gets release date and price – is it worth it?

Netflix has confirmed when its cheaper ads-based tier will arrive on the streaming platform, including what price subscribers will need to pay to get access. 

Starting on November 1st, Netflix's 'Basic with Ads' tier will begin to roll out to a dozen countries around the world and will be available at a price of £4.99 / $6.99 / AU$6.99 a month. It will first arrive in Canada and Mexico on November 1st, then the UK, US, Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Korea on November 3rd, before finally debuting in Spain on November 10th, 2022. 

A Netflix standard plan currently costs $15.49 / £10.99 / AU$16.99 per month, a rise in cost that was made effective in March this year. Meanwhile, its cheapest plan prior to this announcement – Netflix Basic – is priced at £6.99 / $9.99 / $AU10.99 per month. For those that don't mind adverts or want to make a saving, it could be quite a tempting offer. 

Once the new tier is made live, adverts will run between 15 to 30 seconds in length, which will play before and during TV shows and films and last for an average of four to five minutes of adverts per hour. In comparison, terrestrial television often has ad breaks every 15 minutes that last the same duration of time.  

An example of what an ad on Netflix will look like can be seen below:

Just like the Basic package, Netflix with ads will be available in 720p/HD, however, users will lose the ability to download Netflix titles. Additionally, a limited number of films and TV series won't be available due to licensing restrictions. These titles have yet to be confirmed but Netflix believes this will be around "five to 10%" of content depending on the country. 

"In short, Basic with Adverts is everything people love about Netflix, at a lower price, with a few adverts in-between," said Netflix chief operating officer Greg Peters.

He added: "Basic with Adverts also represents an exciting opportunity for advertisers – the chance to reach a diverse audience, including younger viewers who increasingly don’t watch linear TV, in a premium environment with a seamless, high-resolution adverts experience."

From a personal standpoint, this seems like a good option and one that will is welcome as we all live through a cost-of-living crisis. As someone that lives in the UK, it's pretty good that if I wanted to drop down a tier I could still watch the likes of Stranger Things, The Crown, The Umbrella Academy, Better Call Saul, Dahmer, The Midnight Club and more, for less than a fiver a month. As long as the basic plan doesn't rise anytime soon, I'm likely to stick to the non-ad option for now. But if it does rise again, I would probably make the switch.

The decision to introduce an ads tier was first mentioned back in April, as the company looks to stop subscribers from leaving. What might help Netflix is if the company stopped cancelling its original shows, with Firefly Lane being the latest show to reportedly be scrapped only last week.

Meanwhile, The Walt Disney Company also confirmed that Disney Plus will receive a price increase of its own later this year as the streaming wars continue.