Disney is exploring a free streaming product to reach price-sensitive customers

Disney is “exploring a free product” for streaming customers, CEO Josh D’Amaro confirmed in a call with investors today.

D’Amaro, who succeeded Bob Iger as Disney’s chief in March, said that a free Disney-owned streaming service would help Disney reach more “price-sensitive” customers, which is a “strategic priority” for Disney, according to a transcript of the call.

A free streaming service would also generate more ad revenue, which has become increasingly important for streaming services challenged by plateauing subscriber numbers, subscriber churn, and competition from cheaper and free rivals.

“Unlike a lot of our AVOD [advertising video on demand] competitors, we’re fairly well-sold, meaning more inventory would actually help us accelerate our ad revenue growth,” D’Amaro said.

A free streaming product might also generate more interest in Disney+ subscriptions, the executive added.

“A free offering could help us drive top-of-funnel Disney+ subscriber growth,” D’Amaro said, using a marketing term referring to the earliest stage of the customer acquisition funnel, where the focus is on building awareness. “Nothing specific to announce today, but definitely something that we’re considering.”

Disney executives didn’t detail what a free, Disney-owned streaming offering would look like. But a report from Business Insider last month claimed that the company was “discussing making some content accessible on Disney+ without a paywall, according to two people familiar with the matter.” The report noted that Adam Smith, chief product and technology officer at Disney, discussed free streaming content during a company meeting for streaming employees but “didn’t share a timeline for this initiative or a sense of the scope.”

A free tier could help Disney+ stand out from other subscription video-on-demand platforms, like Netflix and HBO Max, amid frustration with constantly rising prices.

Netflix is also cautiously considering a free streaming product.

“A free offering could make sense in some markets, but we have to be thoughtful about cannibalization of paid tiers,” Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters said during a call with investors last month. “We’ve got to ensure that we’ve got the right offering, the right differentiation of that offering. It’s probably also worth noting that having an effective scaled ads business in any candidate country for such an offering is clearly an important enabling factor to make those economics work. So that’s all to say that free is something that we’re going to continue to consider, but we have no near-term plans to launch something.”

A history of price hikes

Disney+ (131.6 million subscribers as of November) and Netflix (over 325 million subscribers as of January) are two of the largest streaming services by subscriber count. That large customer base has dealt with repeated price hikes over the years.

Since 2024, Disney+ has raised its US prices twice. Its most recent price hike was in October, when ad plans increased by $2 per month and ad-free plans by $3 per month. During that time, Netflix also increased prices twice, with the most recent change seeing prices increase by $1 per month (ad plans) or $2 per month (ad-free plans) in March.

Years of increasing prices have led to customer churn and frustration and growing interest in free streaming alternatives, including FAST (free ad support streaming television) services like The Roku Channel and Pluto TV. Forty-six percent of US Internet households regularly use FAST services to watch long-form video content, according to a Q3 2025 survey of 8,009 US households by Parks Associates. In a Q4 2025 survey of 4,493 people who were 18 years old and older in the US and Canada, 54 percent of respondents said that they use ad-supported subscription tiers, while AVOD/FAST adoption rose to 70 percent, up five percentage points year over year.

For many, companies like Disney+ and Netflix have made subscription-based streaming too expensive. Ironically, those companies are considering pivoting to the type of free content that they helped drive demand for.