Netflix With Ads Launches Next Month

As promised a few months ago, Netflix is readying a new option for subscribers: A tier of its service that is ad-supported. You pay less per month, but you have to watch your movies and shows with commercial interruptions.

Today, Netflix announced that the plan — which is officially called “Baisic With Ads” — will become available to subscribers on November 3. At launch, it will cost $6.99 a month, which is less than half of a standard Netflix subscription with no ads. (That will cost you $15.49 a month.)

According to the company’s press release, those who subscribe to Basic With Ads will still get “a wide variety of great TV shows and movies; personalized viewing experience; available on a wide range of TV and mobile devices; change or cancel your plan at any time.” Here is what is different about the ad-supported plan:

Video quality up to 720p/HD (now for both our Basic with Ads and Basic plans); average of 4 to 5 minutes of ads per hour; a limited number of movies and TV shows won't be available due to licensing restrictions, which we’re working on; no ability to download titles.

That last one might be a deal breaker for those who travel a lot and like to take their favorite content to go on a tablet or phone.

Netflix also said that ads will run “15 or 30 seconds in length, which will play before and during shows and films.” Some companies do a good job of integrating ads into their streams. Others... do not. We’ll have to see how well Netflix’s ads are interwoven into their content. Still, I would think this will be a popular option for a lot of people. Some people don’t care about ads, and they do care about all the money they are paying for streaming services. Switching to an ad-supported Netflix account would basically allow you to pay for a whole other streaming service every single month with the cash you save.