Hulu has dropped the introductory price of its subscription service with limited ads from $7.99 to $5.99 per month for a period of 12 months in a move that might help it gain some ground on OTT rivals such as Netflix and Amazon.
The limited-time offer, spotted by TV Predictions and seemingly tied to the new fall TV season, is limited to new Hulu customers. That promotional price will rise to $7.99 per month after a year.
Hulu is not offering a similar discount on its commercial-free offering, which was launched last fall and sells for $11.99 per month.
The promotional price keeps Hulu below Netflix’s primary two-stream plan ($9.99 per month), and also undercuts Netflix’s single-stream, SD-only plan, which goes for $7.99 per month. Amazon Prime costs $99 per year (equating to $8.25 per month), while a newer streaming-only option runs $8.99 per month.
Hulu announced in May it was nearing 12 million U.S. subs. Netflix ended Q2 with 47.13 million U.S. streaming subs.
Hulu is also working on a virtual MVPD service that’s expected to launch in Q1 2017.
