There’s a new way to save on Disney+, but this time, it comes with strings attached. The service has quietly introduced a “six-month saver” across all three of its tiers, knocking up to 26% off the monthly price.
Premium drops from £14.99 to £10.99, for instance. The catch is in the name: to get the discount, you’ll need to commit to staying for six months.
It sits between the two options the service normally offers – the flexible rolling monthly plan, and the cheaper-but-locked-in annual plan – as a new middle ground that asks for half a year rather than a full one.
That also makes it a different proposition from the special deals Disney+ has run before. Unlike the no-strings promotion from April, you can’t cancel whenever you like – if you sign up, you’re in until the term is up.
It’s a small change on the surface, but it tells you something about where streaming pricing is heading. And oddly, on two of the three tiers, it ends up cheaper per month than Disney+’s own annual plan.
Here’s everything you need to know.
From £5.99 To £14.99: How Disney+ Got Here
When Disney+ launched in the UK in March 2020, it was a single package at £5.99 a month – 4K streaming, no adverts, and a library built around Disney, Pixar, Marvel and Star Wars.
It’s a very different service now. Star arrived in 2021 with more adult-oriented shows, the one-size-fits-all plan split into three tiers in late 2023, and last October the Star content was rebranded under the Hulu name. In April, more live sport landed under the ESPN banner, adding LaLiga football and more at no extra cost.
Content keeps coming, too. FX’s The Bear returns for its fifth and final season later this month, with all eight episodes dropping at once, and Disney recently slipped out a surprise flashback episode, Gary, starring Ebon Moss-Bachrach and Jon Bernthal.
Alongside it sit the likes of Only Murders in the Building and Grey’s Anatomy – the sort of grown-up drama and comedy that wasn’t part of the Disney+ pitch a few years ago.
All that expansion has come at a price. Disney+ has put its rates up twice in two years, which is the backdrop to the deal below.
What You Get – And What It Normally Costs
As of this writing, Disney+ has three pricing tiers in the UK.
Standard with Ads (£5.99/month) is the entry point: the full content library in Full HD, two simultaneous streams, but with adverts and no downloads.
Standard (£9.99/month, or £99.90/year) drops the ads and adds downloads for offline viewing, still in Full HD.
Premium (£14.99/month, or £149.90/year) is the top tier, with 4K UHD and HDR, Dolby Atmos audio, four simultaneous streams, and everything ad-free.
It’s also worth remembering that not everyone needs to pay Disney directly at all. Since March, millions of Sky customers have had Disney+ Standard with Ads bundled into their subscription at no extra cost.
The new saver offer is aimed squarely at everyone who isn’t on Sky – and Disney now has more competition for those people than ever, with HBO Max having launched in March from £4.99 a month, alongside Netflix, Apple TV and Prime Video.
The Six-Month Saver: Full Prices And Terms
Disney+ has long offered a discount for committing to a full year. What’s new is this middle option – a shorter, six-month commitment.
April’s promotion cut all three tiers to £3.99, £6.99 and £9.99 for three months with no strings attached – those prices were temporary and have since reverted. The new saver works differently.
Here’s what you’ll pay:
| Plan | Six-Month Saver (per month) | Standard Monthly Price | You Save Over 6 Months |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard with Ads | £4.99 | £5.99 | £6.00 |
| Standard | £7.99 | £9.99 | £12.00 |
| Premium | £10.99 | £14.99 | £24.00 |
The mechanics are straightforward, with one important condition. You’re billed the discounted rate each month for six months, after which the price reverts to the standard monthly rate.
The commitment is the key bit: this is a six-month minimum term, and cancellation only takes effect once that term is up. So unlike April’s promotion, you can’t simply leave whenever you fancy – if you sign up, you’re in for the full six months.
There’s no stated end date on the offer, but that doesn’t mean it’s permanent. Disney can withdraw or change it whenever it likes, so it’s worth treating as something that’s available now rather than guaranteed to stick around.
One point on eligibility: Disney doesn’t spell out exactly who can take it, but this is likely for new and returning subscribers. If you’re an existing monthly subscriber and can’t switch directly, the practical workaround is the usual one – cancel your current subscription and sign up fresh on the saver (obviously, this won’t work if you’re on an annual plan).
The Quirk: It’s Cheaper Than Paying For A Year
Somewhat surprisingly, on the two paid tiers, the six-month saver works out cheaper per month than Disney+’s own annual plan.
Standard on the saver is £7.99 a month. The annual plan is £99.90 a year, which works out at £8.33 a month. Premium on the saver is £10.99 a month, while the annual plan is £149.90 a year, or about £12.49 a month.
In other words, committing for six months gets you a lower monthly rate than committing for a full twelve. That’s an odd thing for Disney to have done, since the annual plan is normally the cheapest way in for anyone who knows they’ll stay subscribed.
If you were about to pay for a year of Standard or Premium, the six-month saver beats it on a per-month basis – you’d just need to decide what happens at the six-month mark, when the price climbs back up.
The Standard with Ads tier is the exception. At £4.99 for six months you save £6 in total – the same total saving April’s three-month deal offered, just spread over twice as long. So it’s not a better deal on that tier, just a longer one (but since the April deal is no longer around – you might as well grab this one, IF you know you’re going to stay with Disney+ for at least 6 months).
Disney Is Following A Well-Worn Path Here
If a streaming service dangling a discount in exchange for a contract feels familiar, that’s because it is. Sky’s NOW has been doing exactly this for several years, offering its lowest prices only to subscribers willing to lock in, with minimum terms that have stretched as long as 12 months.
NOW launched back in 2012 as the flexible, contract-free answer to traditional Sky, so its drift towards commitment pricing has been quite the about-turn.
Disney’s version is the same basic idea: sign up for longer, pay less. And Disney was already part-way there, given it has offered annual plans for years.
The contrast with HBO Max is the interesting one. Warner Bros. Discovery’s service does offer commitment-based “Saver Plans” in the UK – but only on its TNT Sports tiers, and only on a 12-month basis.
Its core entertainment tiers are rolling monthly with no minimum-term discount at all (unless you grab them through Sky’s NOW).
So on the entertainment side specifically, Disney+ is now the one offering a lower price for commitment, while HBO Max reserves that for sports fans.
So, Should You Sign Up?
It depends entirely on how confident you are that you’ll want Disney+ for six straight months.
If you know you’re in for the long haul – you’ve got children, you’re working through the Marvel and Star Wars libraries, or you want the FX and ESPN content – then the saver is decent value, and on Standard or Premium it’s the cheapest monthly rate Disney currently offers directly, annual plan included.
If you prefer to dip in and out – subscribe for a month, binge what you want, then cancel – the saver isn’t for you. That’s what the rolling monthly plan is for, and the freedom to leave is worth more than the few pounds a month you’d save by committing.
April’s no-strings promotion was ideal for that kind of rotation; this isn’t.
And if you were eyeing the annual plan, it’s now worth pausing. For six months at least, the saver gives you a lower monthly rate – so unless you specifically want a full year locked in at a fixed price, there’s a cheaper way to pay.
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