Discovery+ Raises Prices After Skydance’s First Week

Discovery+ raised U.S. prices on October 13, 2026, seven days after Skydance closed its cash purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery. The ad-supported plan is now $6.99 a month, up $1, and the ad-free plan is $11.99, up $2.

New sign-ups pay the higher rate at once. Current customers are charged on their next bill dated on or after November 12, 2026. The dollar move is small. The sequence is the one every recent media merger has used: touch the cheap brand first, leave the flagship app for later.

Discovery+ Now Costs $6.99 and $11.99 a Month

The company’s own help page says plan prices increased for new subscriptions in the United States on October 13. Taxes sit on top of both figures. The ad-free jump of $2 is a 20% increase from $9.99, which is the larger percentage of the two tiers.

THE NEW U.S. RATE CARD

• Ad-supported plan: $6.99 a month, $1 more than the $5.99 rate it replaces.
• Ad-free plan: $11.99 a month, $2 more than $9.99, a 20% rise on that tier.
• New accounts: The higher prices started on October 13, 2026.
• Current accounts: The new rate hits the first bill on or after November 12, 2026.

If a customer is still inside a promo, the help page says the price stays put until that promo ends. People billed through Amazon Prime Video Channels, DIRECTV, the Roku Channel, or Sling TV wait on those providers for notice, because Discovery+ does not reset those accounts itself.

The library has not been restacked with the new rate. The app still carries next-day shows from HGTV, Food Network, TLC, ID, Discovery, Animal Planet, and Magnolia Network, the same unscripted stack of 90 Day Fiancé, Deadliest Catch, Sister Wives, and Ghost Adventures that built the service. Four devices can stream in full HD on both plans, and the ad-free tier still allows downloads.

A Spokesperson Puts the Change Before Closing Day

A Skydance spokesperson said the pricing work was already underway before Discovery+ knew the merger close date, and that it was not planned in anticipation of a merger. The same spokesperson said the service reviews prices on a regular cycle so they stay in line with the content and the experience on offer.

That is a clean corporate sentence. It does not change the calendar. Paramount completed the Warner Bros. Discovery purchase on October 6, 2026. Class B shares began trading on the New York Stock Exchange as SKYD. Warner holders received $31.01666668 a share in cash. Seven days later, the first consumer price list out of the new company was a Discovery+ increase.

Matt Stoller, a researcher at the American Economic Liberties Project, treated the timing as the point of the story, writing, “No one could have predicted that Skydance would exploit its market power and raise prices.” The sarcasm is doing the work there. The dollar amounts are not a shock on a $6.99 app. The read, including from people telling friends to sit out HBO Max, is that the new owner is testing how far a bill can move after a deal this large.

The last Discovery+ increase was in January 2025. The service launched in 2021. A hike in that cadence is ordinary in streaming. A hike that prints during week one of a new parent is the part other streamers have trained viewers to expect.

Warner Already Tried to Fold This App Away

This is the second time a merger has put Discovery+ on the block. After Discovery combined with WarnerMedia in 2022, the new Warner Bros. Discovery shop tried to pour the lifestyle library into HBO Max, then rebranded that app as Max to make the mix look intentional. Viewers and partners pushed back on HBO drama sitting next to house-flip daytime. Discovery+ survived as the cheaper standalone.

Gunnar Wiedenfels, then Warner Bros. Discovery’s chief financial officer, later said the quiet part on an earnings call. “If you remember back when we merged into Warner Bros. Discovery, we were trying to shut down Discovery+,” he said, before adding that millions of viewers were still showing up and that “it is a profitable business.” He did not move over to Skydance.

JB Perrette, who ran global streaming and games at Warner Bros. Discovery and now shares the direct-to-consumer business job at Skydance with HBO’s Casey Bloys, called Discovery+ “a tremendous opportunity” with “a lot more ahead for us” on a February earnings call. The service has been profitable since at least 2023, in part because it does not pay for a large original slate. It runs the linear networks’ next-day feed. Cloud bills and little else.

THE PATH THAT KEPT DISCOVERY+ ALIVE

1. 2021: Discovery+ launches in the United States as a low-priced unscripted app.
2. 2022: Discovery combines with WarnerMedia. The new company tries to shut Discovery+ and fold the shows into HBO Max.
3. 2023: The Max rebrand still cannot make the mix sit right, so Discovery+ stays a cheaper standalone.
4. January 2025: Discovery+ raises U.S. prices, the last increase before this one.
5. October 6, 2026: Skydance closes the cash purchase and lists under SKYD.
6. October 13, 2026: New U.S. Discovery+ sign-ups pay $6.99 and $11.99.
7. November 12, 2026: Existing U.S. bills start carrying the new rate.

The 2022 fight is why a $1 bump can look like a soak and still be the milder outcome. The harsher version already had a rehearsal: close the app, push everyone onto the premium brand, and hope the unscripted audience follows.

4.9 Million U.S. Bills Sit Beside Two Flagships

Antenna, the subscription measurement firm, estimated that as of August 2026 Discovery+ had 4.9 million paying U.S. subscribers, about half of them on the ad-supported plan. Paramount+ had about 34.5 million paying U.S. subscribers, 12.8 million of them on ads. HBO Max had about 28.3 million, with 12.9 million on ads.

Those Discovery+ households are not a rounding error, but they are a fraction of the two apps Skydance actually talks about. The last global Discovery+ figure the old company published was 24 million, in March 2022, before Warner Bros. Discovery stopped breaking the brand out. Skydance’s close release boasts 200 million-plus streaming subscribers across platforms, a stacked count that can double-count a person who pays for more than one app.

The close materials also make the ranking obvious by omission. The company described itself as bringing together “two global streaming services.” The About list names HBO Max, Paramount+, and Pluto TV. Discovery+ does not appear there. Executives spent the October 6 press event on a future in which HBO Max and Paramount+ become one product. Discovery+ did not come up.

That silence is the tell from 2022, replayed. The cheap unscripted app is valuable enough to keep billing and now to reprice. It is not valuable enough to put on the day-one stage.

How Skydance’s Three Streamers Compare on Price

Even after the October 13 increase, Discovery+ is still the bargain bin of the new company. Paramount+ already moved in January 2026. HBO Max already moved in October 2025. The leftover cheap brand is catching up in smaller steps, not leaping those two.

SKYDANCE STREAMING PRICES AND U.S. SUBSCRIBERS

HBO Max also sells a $22.99 Premium tier. None of those Max or Paramount+ figures changed on October 13. If the point of week one was to wring the combined company, the wrong app moved. If the point was to keep a profitable, low-cost library from falling further behind a market that has been raising prices for four years, the $1 and $2 steps fit the old Warner playbook: hold Discovery+ under the flagships, and still take a little more.

Ellison’s Day-One Memo Named Trust as a Priority

David Ellison, Skydance’s chairman and chief executive, and co-chief executive Ynon Kreiz sent staff a letter on October 6 that set four “priority areas.” The fourth was “Earn Trust Every Day.” The first three were winning in storytelling, becoming “the most technologically capable media company,” and leading in a crowded market.

THE FOUR PRIORITIES IN THE OCTOBER 6 LETTER

• Win in storytelling: At least 30 theatrical films a year, plus television, games, and live sports the letter names from Harry Potter to the NFL on CBS.
• Technology: Use data, tools, and AI so technology “must serve the art,” in the letter’s words.
• Lead in a crowded market: Drive savings and compete with the largest technology and media companies.
• Earn Trust Every Day: Communicate directly, follow through, and listen to the people the company serves and works with.

The same letter says the combined company has nearly $70 billion in revenue and is targeting at least $6 billion in synergies. It also warns that putting two companies together “will bring change, including difficult decisions that affect our workforce.” On the close call with staff, Ellison said the path in had been “downright ugly” at times and that Skydance now had to be in the business of rebuilding trust.

Trust is foundational to everything we do. And we are committed to earning it every day by communicating directly, following through on our commitments and listening closely to those we serve and work alongside.

David Ellison and Ynon Kreiz, October 6 staff letter

The financial box around that language is tighter than the prose. The new company is carrying about $80 billion in debt after a financing package led by Bank of America, Citigroup, and Apollo. New Class B equity of $47 billion was priced at $12 a share, with the Ellison family, RedBird Capital, and sovereign funds among the buyers. Skydance says it wants net leverage at 3.0 times by the end of 2029, more than $10 billion in free cash flow by 2030, and more than $30 billion a year in content spending kept on a short leash. A $1 Discovery+ increase does not service that stack. It is a rounding item that still trains the customer to expect the next notice.

Paramount+ and HBO Max Are the Unpriced Next Step

The close release is explicit about the streaming map that matters to the debt. Direct-to-consumer products, it says, will unify into a single service over time. Ellison has described an interim bundle of HBO Max and Paramount+ while that work runs. No date, no tier list, and no combined price have been published.

Today, we are Skydance. One team with a shared ambition to entertain, inspire, and inform the world through extraordinary storytelling. https://t.co/hdAJCYt0wm pic.twitter.com/Uoc99Y9srG

— Skydance (@Skydance) October 6, 2026

Disney spent years herding customers from a cheap Disney+ toward a bundle with Hulu. Warner spent 2023 teaching Max buyers to live with Discovery shows, then had to reverse course. Skydance is starting from the other end of that lesson: keep the cheap unscripted app on its own meter, raise it a dollar, and save the messy product decision for the two large apps that actually show up in the 200 million-plus count.

WHAT WE KNOW

• Discovery+ U.S. rates: $6.99 with ads and $11.99 ad-free for new sign-ups as of October 13, 2026, with current bills following on or after November 12.
• Company line: Skydance says the change was in motion before the close date was known.
• Stated streaming plan: HBO Max and Paramount+ are to become one service over time, with a bundle likely first.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• Discovery+ inside the combo: No public plan says whether the app stays standalone, becomes a tile, or is wound down.
• The combined price: Skydance has not published a rate for a merged Max-Paramount product.
• The next hike: Nothing has been announced for HBO Max or Paramount+ under the new owner.

November 12 is the first day a current U.S. Discovery+ account can be charged $6.99 or $11.99. Until Skydance puts a number on the combined app, that is the only new rate the new company has asked anyone to pay.