Today’s the day. The day that the ad-supported tier of Disney+ arrives. This new tier actually costs more than Disney+ cost when it launched in 2019. That’s because Disney+ has gone through a couple of price increases since then. So this ad-supported tier is $7.99, while it’s ad-free tier will cost you $10.99. Both are great values, and the ability to save a few bucks to watch a few ads, is not too bad.
Now with Disney+ having an ad-tier, that means there are now more options for bundles with Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+. You can get the “Duo Basic” plan which offers Hulu and Disney+, both with ads for $9.99. For $12.99, you can get all three with ads – Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+ – in the Trio Basic plan. Finally, there’s the Trio Premium plan, that is $19.99 per month, this includes ad-free Disney+ and Hulu, while ESPN+ still has ads and that is because the majority of ESPN+ is live TV.
You won’t see many ads, for now
Some expected that the ad-supported tier would be a bit cheaper. At this point, it’s only $3 less, or roughly 30%. Many expected it to be closer to $5 or $6. But that might be because of the lack of ads Disney+ is going to be showing in this tier. Disney says that you’ll see at most, 4 minutes of ads per hour. That’s a lot less than traditional TV or Hulu. Traditional TV typically has about 14-18 minutes of ads per hour, and Hulu is a bit more.
We wouldn’t expect that to stay the same though. We’ve seen Hulu slowly grow the amount of ads per hour, and Disney+ will likely follow suite.
So for now, it might be worth it to save a few bucks per month and sit through four minutes of ads per every hour of watching Disney+.
Finally, the ad-supported Disney+ service is not yet available on Roku. This means those that sign up for just Disney+ with ads, or through one of the bundles with ads, you won’t be able to watch on Roku, for now. This likely stems from a carriage dispute with Roku. We know from previous carriage disputes with other services, that Roku wants a cut of ads that are shown on services on its platform. So that’s likely the case here. We should see it available in the coming weeks though.