Netflix’s Basic Plan is No Longer Available in Canada

Netflix’s Basic plan is no longer available for new or rejoining members in Canada, the company announced on a support page (via Engadget). Subscribers currently on the $9.99 (CAD) Basic plan will remain on it unless they cancel their subscription or switch to another plan.

In Canada, Netflix now offers just 3 plans: Netflix Standard with ads ($5.99 CAD/month), Netflix Standard ($16.49 CAD/month), and Netflix Premium ($20.99 CAD per month).

If Netflix’s Basic Plan offers an ad-free experience, subscribers can only watch content on one supported device at a time, and quality is also restricted to HD. In comparison, the cheaper Netflix Standard with ads plan offers Full HD quality and lets subscribers watch on 2 devices at a time. However, a few movies and TV shows are not available on the ad-supported plan.

It’s not clear yet if Netflix also plans to remove its Basic plan for new members in the US and other markets. However, the company may have a good incentive to do so if its new ad-supported tier does bring more revenue than its Basic plan.

In a letter to shareholders published alongside its Q1 2023 earnings in April, Netflix said that it was “pleased with the current performance and trajectory of our per-member advertising economics.” The company added that in the US, its ad-supported plan had a total average revenue per membership (subscription + ads) greater than its $15.49 Standard plan.

Netflix announced last month that its ad-supported tier now has almost 5 million monthly active users and that the userbase “more than doubled” since early this year. Even though the company refused for a very long time to launch a cheaper plan with ads, Netflix CEO said in December that he regretted not launching ad-supported tier earlier.