Crunchyroll Raises Prices for Mega Fan and Ultimate Fan Subscription Tiers
For the first time since 2019, Crunchyroll is hiking up the prices of two of its subscription tiers: The Mega Fan tier and the Ultimate Fan tier. However, the anime streamer will keep the price of Fan tier at $7.99.
Crunchyroll will be raising the price on its Mega Fan tier from $9.99 per month to $11.99 per month and Ultimate Fan from $14.99 per month to $15.99 per month. The price changes will impact 36 countries, including Argentina, Colombia, France, Portugal and the United States.
The Mega Fan offers subscribers with the ability to stream on up to four devices at a time, view content offline, access Crunchyroll’s Game Vault (a catalogue of free games) and receive $15 off $100-plus purchases in the Crunchyroll store every three months. As for Ultimate Fan subscribers, the tier offers streaming on six devices at a time, offline viewing, Game Vault access, $25 off $100-plus purchases in the Crunchyroll store every three months, free shipping on all orders from the Crunchyroll Store and an exclusive swag bag after using the subscription for 12 consecutive months.
The changes will affect those signing up now, but current subscribers won’t see the new price until their June billing cycle. In addition, Crunchyroll will be reducing its trial period from 14 days to seven days.
“The ad-supported tier of more than 1,000 hours also remains unchanged. The free-trial period will also change from 14 days to 7 days for users to experience Crunchyroll, in tandem with other streaming services,” the statement continued. “These changes, effectively today for new subscribers and with the June billing cycle for current subscribers, will allow us to acquire more diverse anime content, bring subscribers even more benefits and access, and re-invest more into the overall Japanese anime ecosystem.”
As with 2019, the last time Crunchyroll bumped the price up, the company also boosted its library. The average number of seasonal series increased from 20 to 50 to 50 to 60, its global library expanded from 31,000 episodes, 15,000 hours and 1,200 series and films to 50,000 episodes, 25,000 hours and 1,400 series and films. It also added 3,500 anime-related music videos and concert specials as well as added more languages — including Hindi, Castilian Spanish, Telugu and Tamil — for subtitles and dubbing.
“This is the first price increase in five years, and we are committed to bringing fans more of what they love – more access to the best anime from Japan,” the statement concluded.
The amendment to its subscription comes at a time when the demand for anime and the consumption of it is at its highest. Per Parrot, global demand for anime grew 118% between 2020 and 2022, making it one of the of the fastest-growing content genres, and Crunchyroll has over 13 million paid subscribers.
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