Netflix has been throwing gobs of money at original programming, and those costs are finally catching up in the form of price increases for its customers.
The SVOD is going to boost the price of its standard service from $9.99 to $10.99 per month, and price of its premium tier from $11.99 to $13.99 per month, according to Mashable.
The report says that the price increases are only happening in the U.S. and that the new rates will take effect in November. Customers can expect a notice from Netflix on Oct. 19.
The company seemingly confirmed the increases in a statement saying the company “from time to time” has to bump up its prices in order to continue providing original programming and updating its service platform.
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The last time Netflix hiked its prices was in 2014. When the grandfathered rates for long-time users expired in 2016, the company was hit by higher-than-expected churn rates. During the second quarter of 2016, Netflix added only 160,000 new domestic subscribers, well below its projected growth of about 500,000.
Since then, however, Netflix has continued to add large amounts of new subscribers both in the U.S. and internationally. In the second quarter of 2017, Netflix added 5.2 million new subscribers—1.07 million in the U.S. and 4.14 million internationally—putting it way out in front of its estimated 3.2 million total subscriber adds.
While Netflix’s subscriber count has grown—the service currently has about 104 million total subscribers and is predicting the number will grow to more than 108 million during the third quarter of 2017—so too has the SVOD’s booming original content budget.
The company now expects to spend as much a $7 billion per year on original TV shows and movies.