Disney+ is putting its UK prices up again – and while there’s been no announcement yet, Disney’s own website has already given the game away.
Tucked away in the fine print on the Disney+ UK homepage is confirmation that Standard with Ads, the cheapest way to subscribe to Disney+ directly, is going from £5.99 to £6.99 a month in October.
It isn’t the only Disney+ price quietly changing in October, either. And it lands just as Disney has put up prices in the US, where ad-tier subscribers have curiously got off far more lightly than UK viewers are about to.
So what does it mean for Standard and Premium? When will existing subscribers start paying more? And is there still a way to beat the rise? Here’s everything we know so far – and what we can work out from Disney’s track record.
What The Fine Print Says
Disney+ currently has three plans in the UK:
- Standard with Ads (£5.99/month): Full HD, two screens at once, adverts, and no downloads.
- Standard (£9.99/month or £99.90/year): Full HD, two screens, no adverts, and downloads.
- Premium (£14.99/month or £149.90/year): 4K and HDR, Dolby Atmos, four screens at once, no adverts, and downloads.
Those are the prices if you pay month by month, with the freedom to cancel whenever you like. But since June, Disney+ has also offered a six-month saver on all three plans.
You commit to at least six months and pay less each month in return: £4.99 for Standard with Ads, £7.99 for Standard and £10.99 for Premium. Once the six months are up, you move onto the regular monthly price.
The price rise is hidden in the saver terms. Disney+ is currently pushing a “last chance” offer on its UK homepage to get the Standard with Ads saver at £4.99 a month before October 13.
The terms at the bottom of the page explain why it’s the last chance: “the price of the Standard with Ads 6-month saver will increase to £5.99/mo from 14/10/26.”
And once those six months are up, the “subscription then auto-renews at £6.99 a month.”
In other words, the saver goes up by £1 to £5.99 from October 14, and the regular monthly price that everyone rolls onto afterwards goes up by £1 to £6.99, which is about 17% more than today.
The fine print doesn’t give a date for when the regular monthly price itself changes, and Disney’s website hasn’t fully caught up either – its checkout page still says the saver renews at £5.99. But the £6.99 figure is there in black and white.
The US Got Its Price Rise This Week
Disney raised its US prices on September 23, with existing American subscribers moving onto the new prices from their billing date on or after October 21.
The biggest jump is on Premium, the ad-free plan, which goes from $18.99 to $21.49 a month, a rise of $2.50 or around 13%. The annual Premium plan climbs from $189.99 to $214.99.
The ad-supported plan got off far more lightly, rising 50 cents from $11.99 to $12.49, or roughly 4%.
Disney also froze the price of its cheapest Disney+ and Hulu bundle at $12.99, while most of its other US bundles went up by between $2 and $3.
That makes the UK change look rather steep by comparison. Americans are paying around 4% more for Disney+ with adverts, while UK subscribers are looking at a rise of about 17% on the equivalent plan.
Last Year, Every UK Plan Went Up
This is now the fourth autumn in a row that Disney+ has put up its UK prices – and apart from 2022, it has raised them every year since 2021.
The first rise came in February 2021, less than a year after launch, when the monthly price jumped from £5.99 to £7.99 as Star arrived. Then in November 2023, Disney+ split into three tiers, and keeping the original 4K, four-screen experience meant paying £10.99 a month for Premium.
In October 2024, Standard went up by £1 and Premium by £2, while Standard with Ads stayed at £4.99.
Then in September 2025, Disney+ raised prices across all three UK tiers. Standard with Ads went from £4.99 to £5.99, Standard from £8.99 to £9.99, and Premium from £12.99 to £14.99.
Last year, we also started with just one confirmed figure (a rise in the annual Standard plan), and Disney confirmed rises on every plan about ten days later.
When Disney+ launched in the UK in March 2020, it cost £5.99 a month for everything, 4K included. At our estimated new Premium price (see below), the same experience would cost almost three times that.
So What Could Standard And Premium Cost?
There’s no word yet on the two ad-free plans. We contacted Disney, but they had nothing to share about pricing changes right now.
Still, Disney+ has put up both Standard and Premium in each of the last two years, so it would be a surprise if they escaped this time. The following are our estimates, not confirmed prices – but there are three useful clues to go on.
The first is the US rise. Premium went up by around 13% there. Apply that to the UK’s £14.99 Premium plan and you get £16.96, which rounds up to £16.99.
The second is last year’s UK rise, when Standard went up by £1 and Premium by £2. Repeat that, and Standard becomes £10.99 and Premium £16.99.
The third is the rise Disney has already revealed. Standard with Ads is going up by about 17%. If Disney applied that same percentage to the other plans, Standard would land at around £11.66 and Premium at around £17.49 – which is the worst-case scenario.
Two of the three clues point at the same Premium price, which makes £16.99 our best guess. Here’s how that compares with today’s prices:
| Plan | Current price | Likely new price |
|---|---|---|
| Standard with Ads | £5.99/month | £6.99/month (confirmed) |
| Standard with Ads 6-month saver | £4.99/month | £5.99/month from October 14 (confirmed) |
| Standard (monthly) | £9.99/month | £10.99/month (possibly up to £11.99) |
| Standard (annual) | £99.90/year | £109.90/year (estimate) |
| Premium (monthly) | £14.99/month | £16.99/month (possibly up to £17.49) |
| Premium (annual) | £149.90/year | £169.90/year (estimate) |
The annual estimates assume Disney keeps charging ten months’ worth for a year, as it does now. Everything below the confirmed Standard with Ads figures is just speculation until Disney says otherwise.
When Will Existing Subscribers Pay More?
The October dates on the homepage apply to new and returning subscribers signing up. If you’re already paying for Disney+, you won’t be moved onto a new price without warning.
Disney’s UK Subscriber Agreement says it will email you at least 28 days before a price change takes effect, and that you can cancel if you don’t want to accept it.
Last year, the new prices went live for new subscribers on September 30, while existing monthly subscribers moved across from their billing date on or after November 4, and annual subscribers from November 25. In 2024, existing subscribers were moved from November 21.
So if you haven’t had an email from Disney+ yet, the new price can’t reach your bill for at least four weeks after that email arrives.
If you get Disney+ through Sky, which has included Standard with Ads at no extra cost for millions of Sky customers since March, your bill is set by Sky rather than Disney, so these homepage prices don’t apply to you directly.
How Disney+ With Ads Compares Now
We can’t compare Standard and Premium with their rivals until Disney confirms those prices. But we can compare the ad-supported plans – and a busy few weeks of price rises have shuffled the order.
| Service | Cheapest ad-supported plan | Monthly price | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Netflix | Standard with Ads | £7.99 | Full HD, two screens, downloads on one device |
| Disney+ | Standard with Ads | £6.99 (from October) | Full HD, two screens, no downloads |
| Paramount+ | Basic with Ads | £5.99 | Full HD, one screen at a time |
| HBO Max | Standard with Ads | £5.99 | Includes the newest films and downloads |
| HBO Max | Basic with Ads | £4.99 | Two screens in Full HD, not all films included |
Netflix raised its UK prices earlier this month, and its ad-supported plan took the biggest hit, going from £5.99 to £7.99. That makes it the most expensive of the lot.
Paramount+ went up in August, with Basic with Ads moving from £4.99 to £5.99 – although that plan only lets you watch on one screen at a time.
HBO Max, which only launched in the UK in March, hasn’t raised its prices yet. Its £5.99 Standard with Ads plan includes the newest Warner Bros. films and downloads, while the cheaper £4.99 Basic with Ads plan leaves some of those films out.
Until now, Disney+, Paramount+ and HBO Max all charged the same £5.99 for their ads plans. At £6.99, Disney+ moves £1 above both and £2 above HBO Max’s cheapest option, while still sitting £1 below Netflix.
How To Beat The Disney+ Price Rise
If you’re planning to subscribe anyway, there are a few ways to pay less, at least for a while.
The most obvious is the current Standard with Ads Saver offer: six months at £4.99 a month, available to new and eligible returning subscribers until October 13. Just remember that it’s a six-month minimum term, and that it then renews at £6.99 a month (but you can cancel once the six months are up).
The Standard and Premium six-month savers, at £7.99 and £10.99 a month, are also still available at their current prices – for now. Disney hasn’t said whether those will change, but if the monthly prices go up, it would be surprising if the savers stayed where they are.
The annual plans are the other option. At £99.90 for Standard and £149.90 for Premium, they lock in today’s price for a full year. Last year, existing annual subscribers only moved onto the new price when their plan renewed.
Of course, all of these mean giving up the freedom to cancel whenever you like – which is one of the main reasons people cut the cord in the first place. If you tend to subscribe for a month or two when a big show lands, then cancel, a small price rise matters less than it looks.
Either way, with Netflix and Paramount+ having already gone up this autumn, Disney+ is just the latest service to ask for more.
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