Disney+ Discounts Its Ad Tier and Adds Perks in Fall Subscriber Push

Disney+ is discounting its advertising tier in a new push for subscribers, and adding a slew of perks for users as a value-add.

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The streaming service will offer new and returning subscribers three months of the ad tier for $1.99 per month, an $18 discount to the $9.99 per month standard rate announced earlier this summer. The offer begins Thursday, and will run through Sept. 27.

Disney’s price hikes are set to go into effect in October.

The marketing campaign, which rolled out overnight, calls it a “blockbuster offer,” connected to the release of shows like Wizards Beyond Waverly Place and Agatha All Along , as well as the Disney+ debut of Inside Out 2 . This also coincides with the end of Disney’s fiscal fourth-quarter earnings. Disney had projected a modest growth in subs in Q4.

In addition to the hefty discount, Disney also announced a number of perks for Disney+ subscribers, something that other streaming services have generally shied away from doing.

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The perks include a contest to win a trip on an upcoming Disney Cruise Line cruise; a bundle of free Marvel digital comics; 15 percent off Disney products from Funko and LoungeFly; a free emoji in Disney Emoji Blitz; an “exclusive in-game cosmetic for the main character’s companion, Nix, in the all-new Star Wars Outlaws game”; early access to Agatha All Along merchandise at the Disney Store; and tickets to D23 Tune-in to Terror: A Hollywood Halloween , a subscriber-only live event set to be held in Los Angeles.

Disney has been aggressive in finding ways to bolster its subscriber base. Internally, it has launched bundles with Hulu and ESPN+ (with Hulu now integrated into the main Disney+ app), and it recently launched a bundle with Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max.

And it has experimented with perks for subscribers as well, including discounted or exclusive merchandise, access to movie tickets and other items. At the D23 conference in Anaheim last month, many of the booths had exclusive gifts or pins for Disney+ subscribers.

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