Last year there was a major blowup online about Plex raising their prices for the first time in… nearly a decade. Tons of commentators online telling people to move away from Plex all because they changed their pricing model in a way to better guarantee they have the revenue they need to… keep doing business.
Since Plex is… a business… I really hope that isn’t coming as a surprise.
And I wrote an article saying that I was staying with Plex. That I didn’t really care much about the pricing models since the only effect they had with me was an extra… 2 USD per month. I like Plex. And as I wrote in my article last year, aside from a couple hiccups when I tried using the Plex server plugin embedded in FreeNAS, I haven’t had any issues with it. I have zero reason to switch.
And I have zero issue paying for the monthly Plex Pass since that means continuing to support the company.
And their latest pricing announcement regarding their Lifetime Plex Pass is not surprising.
Lifetime anything means that the company selling it gets revenue from a customer only once. So surging the price on the Lifetime Plex Pass from around 250 USD to 750 USD is absolutely not surprising and is about encouraging anyone coming to Plex to go for the annual or monthly Plex Pass.
Last year, Plex raised the price of the Lifetime Pass from 120 USD to 250 USD. The monthly Pass at the time was just 5 USD per month. So this meant the Lifetime Pass initially brought in only 2 years worth of revenue. Once. Last year’s price increase kicked that up to 3 years compared to the monthly.
Now… it’s shy of 10 years.
So this is about better ensuring revenue going forward and pushing people to the annual and monthly passes for a more consistent revenue stream.
As with other subscription models, this also eliminates lock-in. If you have the monthly Plex Pass, or was an early adopter of the Lifetime before the price increase last year, there is no buyer’s remorse. If you find something more suited to your media streaming needs, migrate everything and just cancel your Plex Pass subscription.
The new pricing, though, would definitely be locking you in for much longer. And, again, I feel the new pricing is entirely about discouraging anyone coming to Plex from buying into it so they have a more consistent revenue stream.
And I would not be surprised if Plex announces next year that they’re discontinuing the Lifetime Plex Pass.
And I also will not be surprised if a ton of commentators on the various platforms all make videos and other content decrying this move as “greedy” and the like, demanding everyone abandon Plex for… Jellyfin or anything else that’s just… not anywhere close to Plex. You know, like what happened last year. And all without trying to understand the underlying math and the fact Plex is doing this to, again, ensure a consistent revenue stream.
Either pay per month or year for the Plex Pass, or pre-pay nearly 10 years up front. Your choice.
