Plex Tripling Lifetime Plex Pass Price to $750 in July

[carniesandrubes]

I'll sell my login to anyone who wants it for $500 after the price hike. That's 33% off!

 

[RodThePlod]

Wow! I thought mine was a bargain when I bought it for $120 back in 2017. What a difference a decade makes.

I don't know that I would have ever paid $750 though.

What a difference a year makes! I got mine for around £50 ($79) back in 2016! Glad I did!

 

[EvilEvil]

All these tech companies continue to get greedy stupid. I'm glad I switched to Jellyfin.

 

[phrehdd]

I get such a kick out of this as I recall when PLEX was just a spin off of XBMC. I recall also in forum for Plex making two suggestions - built in guide/help and breaking it apart akin to server/client...and here they are now in big bucks land.

 

[guspasho]

Jellyfin lifetime pass is still $0.

 

[LightProtector]

Jellyfin is the clear choice here. Plex is very easy to use, but for how much it costs, Jellyfin is just so much better.

Only issue is that there are so many Jellyfin clients to choose from. Infuse is probably the best for iOS and Apple TV though.

 

[shapesinaframe]

This price is to push users into subs or stay on ad supported free, whatever is more profitable than a Lifetime pass.

 

[mikext]

That price is bloody insane to play my own content. I picked up my lifetime pass for £76 in 2021, glad I did now.

Same here. This is madness lol.

 

[lepetitnicolas]

Loooooool it will be going to be less expensive to just go watch movies at the theatre or rent them at Blockbuster.
Wait... what ? Blockbuster does not exist anymore 😱 !!!! OMG !!!! OMG !!! People listen to that : Blockbuster is gone !!!! And have you seen the prices of everything ??? It costs an arm and a leg !!!!!
Time to leave this world faaaast.... Come with me if you want to live.

 

[mavis]

I got mine for $89.99 a couple of years ago, so I don't really care. But at least they give people the option of paying once, rather than yet another subscription.

 

[CarAnalogy]

How can their costs possibly be so high as to justify this? They say when they started they were movie and TV fans that wanted to build something great for people like them.

OK, they did that. What changed? How is it possibly over three times more expensive/valuable now? This is high end commercial software territory. Just doesn't make sense.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Bought my Plex Pass lifetime for $75 in 2012, which feels ridiculously inexpensive now obviously.

Honestly, I use the server part but not really the front end anymore.

I play everything off my Plex server with Infuse these days.
I suppose I could use a variety of server backends with Infuse if I had to.

 

[chetzar]

The biggest problem with this is that, for Plex, Hardware Transcoding is locked behind a Plex Pass. So unless you can do direct play, everything is software transcoded, which SUCKS.

 

[EvilEvil]

Jellyfin is the clear choice here. Plex is very easy to use, but for how much it costs, Jellyfin is just so much better.

Only issue is that there are so many Jellyfin clients to choose from. Infuse is probably the best for iOS and Apple TV though.

Check out Senplayer. It's way better than Infuse.

 

[audiofader]

I really think what Plex is after is to make you look at the monthly subscription price and think it's cheap compared to the lifetime pass. So now they've hooked users into providing monthly income. They know the lifetime pass price will be seen as outrageous and are banking on that. There'll be a number of people who switch to Jellyfin, and they should, but probably not the majority of most users. If you're already a lifetime member this really isn't going to impact you (I've got a lifetime pass from a few years ago), most users probably aren't going to care once this initial outrage is over. Now if they decide to cut-off current lifetime members later, I'm absolutely jumping ship.

 

[chipchen]

$5 says they've plateaued on growth and this huge price hike is for two reasons:

1. charge those who really need/want it an amount that they will still pay for and they will make more off them
2. be able to offer seasonal discounts to make people on the edge finally purchase

 

[foo2]

I got mine for a tenth of the price, with a Black Friday sale years ago. I love Plex (when it works), but $750 is way too much. Giving people more than a month’s notice of this increase, is this a ploy to get people to buy the $250 now who are on the fence and this will entice them? I suspect there will be many sales after the new price kicks in

Curious - what do you find not working with Plex / your PlexPass? What is your server (and what's the CPU in it?). What's your client device?

 

[smorris]

That's a lot! But a bigger shock is the percentage of the increase. Yikes! I just looked, and I paid $90.44 for my Lifetime Plex Pass in April 2022, but that was just three months after paying the $40 annual cost. So that must have been an upgrade price.

Generally, I like buying lifetime subscriptions. I have rarely lost out, and usually I'm far ahead of what I would have paid annually.

Plex:~ $130 in 2022
Roon: $500 in 2018
Sirius/XM (x2) $385 in 2008
Adguard: $115 in 2018
Alfred Power Pack: $23 in 2012
Bartender Mega Supporter: $32 in 2023
Firecore Infuse whenever the first Apple TV came out
Probably some more that I don't remember

America the Beautiful Lifetime Pass: $10 in 2016 (and have saved $1521 in fees to date)
Ohio lifetime hunting/fishing license: $85 each in 2019

 

[MSKenyon]

Emby for the win.

 

[Syrianos82]

Infuse is a great alternative too

 

[GIZBUG]

I don't want to pay $750 to use plex.

Then don't.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Infuse is a great alternative too

Infuse for playing and media shared off a Mac (off internal or external drive, or both) is a wonderful low budget way to do this all -- and it's actually really great.

Infuse plays basically ANYTHING you throw at it.

(I'm an Infuse Pro user as well - love it so much!

 

[mannyvel]

Plex keeps trying to sneak stuff onto my Home Screen, which is unbelievably aggravating. Guess it's time to go infuse.

 

[Syrianos82]

Infuse for playing and media shared off a Mac (off internal or external drive, or both) is a wonderful low budget way to do this all -- and it's actually really great.

Infuse plays basically ANYTHING you throw at it.

Running on an Apple TV and accessing a media folder on a nas is such a breeze. It matches the Apple user experience and ease of use

 

[Corefile]

Apparently you don't use Plex at all. Plex is free. To add some features you may or may not want, requires a Plex Pass.

I do use it as I use the Plexamp app to stream music to my Android telephone when I need music on my Android device. I also use Plex to stream my music via an Amazon skill to my Amazon Echo Dot Alexa speaker thing. So, about me "Apparently you don't use Plex at all.", can you elaborate on that?