Netflix confirms it’s cutting off Apple billing for grandfathered subscribers

Netflix confirms to The Verge that it has begun booting longtime subscribers off their Apple iTunes billing plans, and will require them to pay Netflix directly using a credit card or debit card instead. Earlier today, The Streamable reported that Netflix had begun telling customers in “some territories,” but Netflix representative Momo Zhao confirms to us that all “members on the basic plan who were using an iTunes method of payment” will need to sign up directly.

It’s been a good run for anyone who signed up before Netflix stopped accepting subscriptions through Apple’s payments system. One person indicated today on X that they’d kept the streaming service’s old $9.99 price for years.

Alas, if you’re like that person, you’ll now have to join the rest of us and either accept a more-than-$5 price hike for essentially the same plan you’ve had for years or pay $3 less than you have been and let the ads wash over you. Or you could take the time to reflect on your relationship with streaming services, which seem to get pricier all the time.

The change is the end of a long saga — despite Apple adding in-app subscription options to iPhones in 2010, Netflix didn’t add them to its iOS app until 2015 because it was opposed to Apple’s 30 percent cut. In late 2018, Netflix decided it didn’t want to pay Apple at all, dropping in-app subscriptions entirely, and it never looked back.