Netflix confirms it’s cutting off Apple billing for legacy subscribers

Netflix confirms to The Verge that it has begun booting longtime subscribers off their Apple iTunes billing plans in some countries and will require them to pay Netflix directly using a credit card or debit card instead. As first reported by Cord Cutter News, Netflix has begun telling customers in “some territories” that their plans would need to be switched over. Netflix spokesperson MoMo Zhou told The Verge in an email that the change affects “members on the basic plan who were using an iTunes method of payment,” and later added that this includes Canadian and US users.

It’s been a good run for anyone who signed up before Netflix stopped accepting subscriptions through Apple’s payments system. One person indicated today on X that they’d kept the streaming service’s old $9.99 price for years.

Netflix stopped working with Apple Pay and didn’t inform me. Now I’m locked out of my $9.99 a month price I had paid for years and I had to get charged $31 until I get a refund through Apple. 🙃🫠 Love this!

— 𝑀𝑒𝑔𝒶𝓃 (@meganNwalsh) February 25, 2024

Alas, if you’re like that person, you’ll now have to join the rest of us and either accept a more-than-$5 price hike for essentially the same plan you’ve had for years or pay $3 less than you have been and let the ads wash over you. Or you could take the time to reflect on your relationship with streaming services, which seem to get pricier all the time.

The change is the end of a long saga — despite Apple adding in-app subscription options to iPhones in 2010, Netflix didn’t add them to its iOS app until 2015 because it was opposed to Apple’s 30 percent cut. In late 2018, Netflix decided it didn’t want to pay Apple at all, dropping in-app subscriptions entirely, and it never looked back.