Netflix reveals new 'Basic With Ads' plan priced at $7 a month

Netflix shared some surprising, but arguably good news for anyone looking for an option cheaper than the company’s current $9.99 base plan with the reveal of its new “Basic With Ads” plan priced at $6.99 per month. The Netflix Basic With Ads plan is set to launch on November 3 at 9:00 a.m. (PT) for customers in the U.S. and will be available in 12 countries total, including: Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Spain, the U.K. and the United States.

For residents of Canada and Mexico, the plan will be available a few days sooner on November 1. As previously mentioned, the Basic With Ads plan is priced at $6.99, a full $3 cheaper than Netflix’s current base plan. While cheaper, the Basic With Ads plan will not replace the existing Basic plan.

Instead, both the Basic plan and the new Basic With Ads plan will be available and will both offer video quality up to 720p HD along with the ability to stream on one device at a time. Setting it apart from the Basic plan, the Basic With Ads plan won’t include Netflix’s full catalog of content with Netflix’s COO Greg Peters noting that a “limited number of movies and TV shows won’t be available due to licensing restrictions, and we’re going to be working on reducing that over time” as reported by outlets like Variety.

According to Peters, anywhere between 5 and 10 percent of Netflix’s titles will be unavailable to Basic With Ads subscribers. Basic With Ads also won’t give users the ability to download titles for offline viewing. In a news post, Netflix further outlined the differences and similarities between its Basic and new Basic With Ads plan as follows:

Netflix goes on to give potential subscribers a better idea as to what sort of ads they can expect from the Basic With Ads plan, with ads running anywhere from 15 to 30 seconds and playing before and during shows and films.

Ad Format: At launch, ads will be 15 or 30 seconds in length, which will play before and during shows and films.

Advertiser Controls: To help advertisers reach the right audience — and ensure our ads are more relevant for consumers — we’ll offer broad targeting capabilities by country and genre (e.g. action, drama, romance, sci-fi). Advertisers will also be able to prevent their ads from appearing on content that might be inconsistent with their brand (e.g. sex, nudity or graphic violence).

Verification Tools: We have partnerships with DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science to verify the viewability and traffic validity of our ads starting in Q1 2023.

Audience Measurement: To enable advertisers to understand how Netflix can reach their target audience, Nielsen will use its Digital Ad Ratings (DAR) in the U.S. This will become available sometime in 2023 and eventually be reported through Nielsen ONE Ads.

For those who’ve never dabbled with Netflix before, it's worth noting as well that the Basic With Ads plan is a brand new approach from the company which had previously eschewed the incorporation of ads in its plans. For more on the new Basic With Ads plan, be sure to read through the full overview provided by Netflix.

And for more Netflix news, check out some of our previous coverage as well including Capcom's Onimusha getting a Netflix anime adaptation, and Netflix's BioShock live-action film featuring the director of I Am Legend and one of the writers who worked on Logan.