Illustration: Cheyne Gateley/VIP+

Streamer introduces Extra Member option priced at $7.99/month to allow access to the external account holder’s household

If you share yours Netflix If you don’t share your password with someone who doesn’t live with you, you pay for it – adding another user to your account costs an additional $7.99 per month.

On Tuesday, Netflix announced that the company is launching its crackdown on illegal password sharing in its largest market, the United States, to give more of the loose change to customers who share their login information with friends and family outside of their home to pull the bag.

“Your Netflix account is for you and the people you live with in your household,” Netflix says in an email to US customers included in a blog post (see email below). To share Netflix with someone outside of your household, you can transfer a profile to a new membership that someone else is paying for, or you can purchase an additional member for $7.99/month on top of the cost of the main subscription.

In addition to the US, the company says it also has paid sharing plans in countries such as the UK (£4.99 per month per additional member), Ireland (€4.99), Norway (NOK 39), Sweden (kr 49) and Denmark a (39 kr), the Netherlands (€3.99), Belgium (€3.99), Australia (AUD7.99), the Philippines (₱149), Malaysia (RM13), Hong Kong (HKD28) and Singapore (S$6.98). According to Netflix, paid sharing is now widespread but not yet available in all countries and territories.

The company has announced this as part of Netflix’s crackdown on customers who share passwords with people outside of their household Start blocking devices (after a period of time). trying to access a Netflix account without paying properly. However, Netflix members can still access the service while on the go, through their personal devices, or by subscribing to a new TV (e.g. at a hotel or vacation rental).

Netflix announced plans for this last month widespread adoption of paid sharing plans in the second quarter of 2023, shifting it from the original schedule for the first quarter.

“A Netflix account is meant to be shared among a household (people living in the same place as the account owner),” the streamer says on its customer support site — noting that everyone else has a separate paid account or added one must be registered as a paid “extra member”.

Netflix Standard plan customers can add one additional member, and Premium plan customers can add up to two additional members. Netflix doesn’t allow customers on its ad-supported plan to add an additional member. You also cannot enroll an additional member if your account is billed through a third party. Users who are added as an “additional member” can watch Netflix on any device (but only on one device at a time) and download titles (only on one phone or tablet at a time). Additionally, additional members can only have a single profile.

In February 2023, Netflix launched the paid sharing plan in four markets – Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain Buy an additional member option. This allows master account holders to pay an additional monthly fee for a sub-account for one or two people they don’t live with. This comes after Netflix launched paid sharing trials in three Latin American countries (Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru) last year.

In its first-quarter letter to shareholders, Netflix warned that there has been a “cancellation response” in countries where it has rolled out paid-sharing — and that widespread rollout will likely hurt subscriber growth in the second quarter. But Netflix has also pointed to early results in Canada, where the paid membership base is now larger than it was before paid sharing was introduced. Additionally, according to Netflix, first-quarter revenue per subscriber grew faster in Canada than in the United States

“It’s very similar to a price hike — we’re seeing an initial negative reaction,” Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters said in an interview with the company on its first-quarter results. “And then we build on that, both in terms of membership and revenue, as borrowers sign up for their own Netflix accounts and existing members purchase that additional membership feature for people they want to share it with.”

According to Peters, some password borrowers “watch as many of our shows as they do with a regular paid account, and the likelihood of these people converting (to paid sharing plans) I’d say is very high… And if you look at a lot watch less.” , you are far less likely to convert. But even so, I would say that this is a really important structural change where we will develop a one-to-one relationship with no price distortion, no membership distortion and with a whole new membership. So we will see that membership grows through this approach. We will also experience an increase in sales as a result.”

Netflix said its subscriber count doesn’t include “additional members.” Rather, the combined revenue of a master account and its sub-accounts results in a higher average revenue per membership.

Here’s the email going out to US Netflix customers: