Bad news if you were planning some serious binge watching this weekend without having to hand over your banking details – Disney Plus has dropped the 7-day free trial offer that’s been in place since its US launch last November.
If you haven’t already dipped your toes into the Disney Plus waters, you now need to pay $6.99 / £5.99 / AU$8.99 for a month’s worth of streaming instead. As with comparable services, you can drop your subscription whenever you like.
For a lower monthly fee you can stump up for a whole year at once – in that case you’ll be parting with $69.99 in the US, £59.99 in the UK, and AU$89.99 in Australia to get everything streamed on Disney Plus for 12 consecutive months.
In a statement to CNET about the move, Disney said that its streaming platform “was set at an attractive price-to-value proposition that we believe delivers a compelling entertainment offering on its own” – so make of that what you will.
Pay to press play
Considering the likes of Netflix, Hulu (which is owned by Disney) and Apple TV Plus continue to offer a free trial (if you buy an Apple hardware device, you get a year of its video portal for free), it’s disappointing that the option no longer exists to give Disney’s main service a go for free.
To be fair to Disney, you’ve had seven months in the US to decide whether or not to sign up to Disney Plus (though the service only launched in the UK in March). The monthly fee isn’t too steep, and should give you enough time to figure out if Disney Plus is for you.
It’s perhaps notable that a filming of smash hit musical Hamilton is premiering on Disney Plus in a couple of weeks, on July 3 – Disney would obviously prefer new subscribers to pay up for a month to watch it, rather than viewing it for free.
Of course this doesn’t rule out the 7-day free trial coming back at some point in the future, or some other kind of promo deal, perhaps when Disney needs to tempt in another wave of subscribers. For now though, you’ll have to either pay up or look elsewhere.
Via Numerama