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Plex Raises Price for Plex Pass, No Longer Offers Free Remote Playback for Personal Media

Lifetime pass bought years ago, and running a server serving multiple 4k transcodes to me and some friends daily, been absolutely flawless every single day, with the right setup its performs amazingly.

However I would probably not pay the lifetime price now. I would also like to ditch the Plex ATV app as it’s not great, but I don’t love Infuse on ATV either.

If there was a simple plug and play server based solution that does what Plex does for multiple remote users, I’d definitely take a look, but I can’t find one.
 
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Thanks for the heads up... I just upgraded to lifetime before the price increase.

Sorry to say but if you want a professional interface/DVR/program guide solution to use with a network OTA tuner and video server to provide a true cord cutting environment it's really the best option available. The price increase is excessive yes but at $5.83 per month its far cheaper than any basic cable service.

I have employed it for over 3 years with a decently powered x86 video server and it has been incredibly reliable day in and out. Scheduling program recordings up to two weeks in advance is simple and transcoding options are highly flexible even on the fly. And it has client apps for nearly any TV platform.
 
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ctg7w6 said:
I switched to infuse a long time ago, it meets my needs. $10 a year.
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I had lifetime licenses (v3?), they f** the program, they gave me a year for free. It soon ends, and they make you pay. Which doesn't change the fact that the extra, old software would work on Apple TV, but I can't define the sources, crash is going. I didn't need anything else 🤯 BTW I ❤️ Infuse but I hate those practices.
 
Price gauging at its finest!

Maybe Plex should stop paying for external content that nobody wants and needs? Nobody asked for additional content, people only want to stream their own content.

What costs, when people are paying for both bandwidth & hosting costs?? People host their own content. Don't change the software, it just works!

Lay off some engineers, just maintain the current software stack,..don't put the onus onto customers because you can.
 
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Are they completely insane? Locally and remotely streaming *my own media* is the only reason why I use Plex. I don't use any other service related to it. For remote streaming, I'm not using any cloud or relay server that is not mine. Why would I need to pay a subscription for that?

I will look for alternatives. As long as there is no SaaS involved, I won't pay a subscription. I'm fine with one-time, but not the outrageous "lifetime" price they quote.
 
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Of the alternatives, which ones (or all) allow others to create an account that I can then let access my server? I have been using plex for a long time and like each person to have their own account (not a family).
 
I use Jellyfin to host my media, and Infuse as a front end to access it on my Apple devices. They’re both awesome together, no suggested content, no ads. Just my media and my media alone, and it looks great.

Plus Jellyfin also works on any device that doesn’t have Infuse through the web portal. Love it!
 
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ManuCH said:
Locally and remotely streaming *my own media* is the only reason why I use Plex.
...
I will look for alternatives. As long as there is no SaaS involved, I won't pay a subscription. I'm fine with one-time, but not the outrageous "lifetime" price they quote.
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How long have you been running a Plex server? Lifetime at the still-current regular price ($120) breaks even at 2 years compared to the monthly cost ($5/mo).
 
SeaFox said:
How long have you been running a Plex server? Lifetime at the still-current regular price ($120) breaks even at 2 years compared to the monthly cost ($5/mo).
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That may be worth it as I am good with paying for software, but I'm not ok with subscriptions that are not justified. I will look into that. I have been running it for several years and was not planning on switching.
 
ManuCH said:
That may be worth it as I am good with paying for software, but I'm not ok with subscriptions that are not justified. I will look into that. I have been running it for several years and was not planning on switching.
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The fact they still offer a lifetime option at all is nice. I got a lifetime pass several years ago, and actually started a new account and got a second lifetime pass during their last Black Friday sale to support them further and for use in the future for a project or two.
 
I've read through this, I paid for a Plex Pass around 2015 give or take a year, when it cost $150 USD, I believe. Good to know I won't be affected by these changes. I also own a lifetime subscription to infuse Pro, and a Pro license to Servo Media Server. So based on the info I have currently, I bought my subscriptions at a good time as to not be affected by the changes over the years.

EDIT: Just logged into my Plex account, and checked my payment history. I purchased my PlexPass on November 04 2016 for $145.52
 
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Bought my lifetime pass in 2021 for about £90, glad I did now. Love Plex on Synology as it just works.
 
CarpalMac said:
I bought the lifetime pass years ago but no way I would pay current day prices. Every release seems to add more bloatware whilst some issues never seem to be addressed.

Anyone who has seen the h4 error code will know what I mean.
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I've been using Plex since it was a pretty new (Mac only) product and built my first home theater system in my basement around it on a 2006 Mac Pro tower.

Today, I have it running on a TrueNAS server and I use a lifetime Plex Pass I purchased at some point, when I realized the cost for one was only going to go up over time.

About the only "upside" I'm seeing for users with the latest pricing changes is getting rid of that concept of paying to "unlock" the streaming on the iOS or Android Plex client. Over the years, I've had friends of mine who wanted to view content on my Plex server but balked at the fact they had to pay to make the client work first. (I think it was only $4.99 to activate it, but still ....) It makes more sense to me that as a Plex Pass owner, the people I make logins for on my server should be able to stream the content with the Plex app on a mobile device without paying to do it.
 
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I’m all about those perpetual licenses. One and done. Got my Lifetime a few years ago, been worth it for me personally.
 
I have a Lifetime Pass but moved onto Emby about two years ago. The interface isn't quite as nice as Plex in my opinion (and I don't need with customizing it) but the ease of use and stability of Emby is impeccable.
 
The remote viewing works very well. I recently used it with my ATV4K3 on a cruise ship without issue.

For those without Plex Pass, having to pay for it now kind of stink.
 
I've used Plex for quite a while. I'm going to look into some of these alternatives but I've got two GL.iNet travel routers…one is connected to my home router and runs a Wireguard VPN and the other I take with me on trips to connect back to the home VPN with my devices connected to it. So…Plex will still work for me in that manner.

I just got an ASUS home router that will run the VPN server so I really don't need the extra router although I'm still set up that way.
 
Analog Kid said:
I wish Plex would stick to the core mission of home theater. I'm far from a power user, but what features do they think needs to be developed? I could give a darn about all the stuff Plex themselves streams, the whole point was to access my personal library.
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That’s the thing with software that’s for profit in any way. Eventually you run out of useful features, but still need money. So either sell out to an aggregator who will slowly bleed your app to death, or just keep adding features and bleed it to death yourself.

Happens to everyone. Just look at Apple.

You could just spend your time refining it and fixing bugs. But nobody cares about that, apparently it doesn’t drive sales.

And I don’t mean to minimize developers’ need to make money. It just seems like an inevitable downward spiral.
 
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I really like Plex and glad I bought the lifetime pass years ago. Zero complaints really. It does exactly what I need it to do.
 
Analog Kid said:
I wish Plex would stick to the core mission of home theater. I'm far from a power user, but what features do they think needs to be developed? I could give a darn about all the stuff Plex themselves streams, the whole point was to access my personal library.
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Yeah. Love plex and have been a lifetime pass user for a long time. I like the steady improvements they’ve made. Live tv. Tv tuner and dvr capabilities. Plex amp is great. I would love to know what these “new features” they are referring to though. Would’ve been nice had they said, we want to improve our core features. It would be nice to be able to access other content from in the app. Now you can only do that from web interface. If they’re going to use $ for that, im onboard. Im really close to being able to never leave the plex app.
 
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