Western Europe Pays More for Streaming Than Any Other Region, but Price Hikes Are Slowing
Subscribers to Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime Video in western Europe have faced higher average price increases over the past three years than viewers in any other market, including the United States, according to research by Ampere Analysis The Guardian.
The average monthly subscription cost in western Europe rose by $1.86 (£1.36) across the three platforms, edging past the $1.70 increase recorded in the US, the world's largest streaming market. At the other end of the spectrum, subscribers in sub-Saharan Africa saw average increases of less than $1 over the same period.
The headline figures, however, conceal a downward trajectory in the rate of increase. Average price rises across the three streamers fell from 24% of the previous subscription price in 2023–24 to 14% in 2025–26. In dollar terms, ad-free tiers absorbed larger hikes than ad-supported packages, a pattern consistent across all three platforms.
Jaanika Juntson, a senior research manager at Ampere Analysis, attributed the moderation to a shift in monetisation strategy. The decline in price increases comes as streamers diversify how they monetise their audiences, she said The Guardian. That diversification has centred on advertising tiers — cheaper subscription plans that include commercials — which all three platforms have layered into their pricing structures over the past several years.
Netflix's UK pricing history illustrates the cadence. UK subscribers last faced increases ranging from £1 to £2 a month in February 2025, the first hike since October 2023. The ad-supported basic plan rose £1 to £5.99 a month, while the standard ad-free tier went up £2 to £12.99 The Guardian. In the US, Netflix raised prices in March 2026 for the second time in a little over a year.
Disney+ last raised prices in the UK and US in September and October 2025. Its UK ad-supported package now costs £5.99 a month, with the standard ad-free tier at £9.99 monthly or £99.90 annually. Amazon, for its part, introduced a £2.99 monthly surcharge on top of Prime Video membership in February 2024 for users opting out of advertising.
The revenue impact of these cumulative increases is visible in Netflix's UK accounts. Netflix UK passed £2bn in annual revenues for the first time, posting £2.06bn, an 11% increase on the £1.85bn reported in 2024. Pre-tax profits rose from £63m to £72.5m. Netflix attributed the revenue growth primarily to a 7% increase in the average number of paid memberships, combined with higher average monthly revenue per paying member The Guardian.
The competitive landscape has given the platforms room to push prices upward. As of October 2025, Disney+ and HBO Max had already increased their subscription prices, providing cover for Netflix to follow suit Reuters. This was a notable reversal from early 2023, when Netflix cut subscription prices in several markets to sustain subscriber growth after its ad-supported plan, priced at $6.99 per month, struggled to gain traction due to limited content access and insufficient affordability Reuters. Disney+'s own western European launch in March 2020 at $7 per month set a price floor that has since roughly doubled for ad-free access.
The broader context here is one of maturing market dynamics. The streaming industry has moved from a land-grab phase, where the priority was signing up as many subscribers as possible, into a consolidation phase where existing audiences are being monetised through a combination of price increases, tier differentiation, and advertising insertion. The compression of average price hike rates from 24% to 14% over two cycles suggests that platforms are approaching the ceiling of what western European subscribers will absorb before cancelling, particularly as the cost-of-living pressures that defined 2023–24 have not fully abated. The disparity between western Europe and sub-Saharan Africa further signals that pricing power remains geographically concentrated, with streamers applying regional elasticity models — that is, charging more where consumers can bear it and keeping prices low in emerging markets to protect subscriber growth.
Whether the 14% rate of 2025–26 marks a floor or merely a pause before the next round of increases will depend on churn data that the platforms do not disclose in granular regional detail. What is clear from the Ampere figures is that western European subscribers have carried a disproportionate share of the industry's revenue-per-user optimisation, and the platforms' UK financial results confirm that the strategy is working as intended.
