HBO Max subscribers should brace for higher bills. Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav announced the streaming service will raise prices and crack down on password sharing, calling the platform "way underpriced" during a Goldman Sachs conference. With current plans ranging from $9.99 to $20.99 monthly, the move follows Netflix's playbook of squeezing more revenue per user.
Warner Bros. Discovery just telegraphed its next revenue play, and HBO Max subscribers won't like it. CEO David Zaslav dropped the news at Goldman Sachs' Communacopia + Technology Conference, bluntly stating that price hikes are inevitable because "we think we're way underpriced."
The announcement sends HBO Max down the same path Netflix blazed - squeeze existing users harder rather than just chase new ones. Zaslav's confidence stems from what he sees as HBO Max's content quality advantage. "The fact that this is quality - and that's true across our company, motion picture, TV production, and streaming quality - we all think that gives us a chance to raise price," he told The Hollywood Reporter.
But the pricing pressure isn't stopping there. Zaslav confirmed that HBO Max will follow Netflix's controversial password-sharing crackdown playbook. "We haven't been pushing on the password sharing and the economics yet," he admitted during the conference. "People are really starting to love HBO Max. That's the key. We want them to fall in love with our content, with our series, with the differentiated offering outside of the U.S."
The timing reveals Warner Bros.' strategic calculation. Let users get hooked on content like "House of the Dragon" and "The Last of Us," then tighten the financial screws. "It's all tricky with the password sharing. We're going to begin to push on that," Zaslav said, acknowledging the delicate balance between growth and revenue extraction.
[embedded image placeholder: HBO Max interface showing current pricing tiers]
Currently, HBO Max operates on a three-tier structure that already positions it as premium: Basic with Ads at $9.99 monthly, Standard at $16.99, and Premium at $20.99. Even the cheapest tier costs more than Disney+'s ad-supported option at $7.99, suggesting Zaslav's "underpriced" claim targets the higher tiers where margins matter most.
The move comes as streaming wars intensify and Wall Street demands profitability over subscriber counts. Netflix's password crackdown added millions of paying subscribers in 2023, proving the financial upside of forcing shared accounts into separate subscriptions. Warner Bros. clearly studied that playbook.
