The last time HBO Max subscribers got hit with a price hike, the service was still called “Max.” But following the recent switch back to HBO Max, the streamer’s boss sounds like he’s itching for a price increase.
“The fact that this is quality—and that’s true across our company, motion picture, TV production and streaming quality—we all think that gives us a chance to raise [the] price,” said Warner Bros. Discover CEO David Zaslav during a recent investor conference (as per The Hollywood Reporter). “We think we’re way underpriced. We’re going to take our time.”
When Zaslav says “we’re going to take our time,” I’d interpret that as maybe a month or two, not much more.
The last time HBO Max (we’ll just keep calling it that to cut down on confusion) raised prices was roughly 15 months ago, when the streamer hiked the price of its two ad-free tiers by a buck each, while leaving its “Basic with Ads” tier alone.
Here’s a breakdown of HBO Max’s current price structure:
Basic with Ads: $9.99 a month, or $99.99 a year
Standard: $16.99 a month, $169.99 a year
Premium: $20.99 a month, $209.99 a year
As a reminder, HBO Max’s Premium tier gives you four simultaneous 4K UHD streams with Dolby Atmos support plus up to 100 downloads at a time. The Standard plan offers two 1080p streams with 30 downloads at once, while Basic with Ads serves up two ad-supported 1080p streams without the downloads.
While HBO Max’s Basic with Ads tier didn’t get hit with a price hike last June, it did lose access to the Bleacher Report as well as CNN back in February, leaving subscribers with less to stream in terms of live sports and news coverage.
So, when might a new HBO Max price hike arrive? Zaslav didn’t specify during his remarks earlier this week, but streaming price increases tend to land around the same time as quarterly earnings are announced.
HBO Max parent Warner Bros. Discovery delivered its second-quarter 2025 earnings in early August, which means we’re due for another quarterly earnings report in November. Look for word of price increases right around then, if not sooner.
The good news is that HBO Max does offer annual plans, which allow you to lock in a cheaper rate before a planned price hike kicks in, provided you’re willing to fork over for an entire year’s worth of streaming at once.
Aside from his pricing remarks, Zaslav touched on HBO Max’s password sharing crackdown, which is slated to crank up several notches in the coming months. HBO Max rolled out an “Extra Member Add-On” option back in April that lets subscribers share their accounts with others outside their households for $7.99 a month per sub-account.
While HBO Max has been content with “gentle messaging” towards users that are suspected of sharing passwords, the streamer has promised to get more “aggressive” as the year rolls on.
“We haven’t been pushing on the password sharing and the economics yet,” Zaslav said. “People are really starting to love HBO Max. That’s the key. We want them to fall in love with our content, with our series…It’s all tricky with the password sharing. We’re going to begin to push on that.”
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