While Netflix Raises Prices, Hulu Discounts Subscriptions For the First Year

There has been a lot of talk this week about Netflix raising their prices for subscribers, the second time they’ve done so since becoming a household name for streaming movies and TV shows.

One of Netflix’s biggest competitors has just started offering a discount on the first year of streaming. Hulu lowered their monthly subscription cost from $7.99 to $5.99 for the first year. This is for a plan that has commercials (we highly recommend splurging a few extra bucks a month for the “almost” ad-free version of the service, it’s well worth it).

Definitely a good PR move here, especially after they have been on a streak of good news, following their Emmy win for ‘The Handmaid’s Tale.’ The service also continues to line up massive wins in their content library, getting exclusive rights to ‘This is Us,’ and almost the entire back catalog of ‘TGIF’ shows like ‘Boy Meets World,’ and ‘Family Matters.’

FOX also recently pulled several of their key titles from Netflix, and now plan on distributing these shows on Hulu. This includes some previous Netflix mainstays like ’30 Rock.’ There’s no doubt that Hulu is betting big on being the new back catalog service, whereas Netflix seems almost entirely focused on being a content creator moving forward, likely out of pure necessity.