ESPN raises streaming prices across every tier, first increase since launch

If you pay for ESPN inside the Disney+ and Hulu bundle, that is where the increase lands hardest: two to three dollars more a month depending on which version you hold. The changes were first spotted on an ESPN support page by Sports Media Watch, and they touch every standalone plan as well.

The ad-supported Select membership goes to $13.99 a month from $12.99. Its annual plan moves to $139.99 from $129.99.

Unlimited is the tier where reporting differs slightly. One account of the support page lists the monthly price at $31.99, up from $29.99; another puts it at $32, up from $30. The annual figure is consistent at $319.99, previously $299.99.

The bundles are where most of the money actually sits. Disney+ with ads, Hulu with ads and ESPN Select together go to $21.99 a month from $19.99. The ad-free combination of the same three services rises to $32.99 from $29.99, and the legacy ad-free bundle goes to $27.99 from $24.99.

One group escapes entirely. Disney+ bundles that include ESPN Unlimited rather than Select are not affected by any of this, and that exclusion matters more than it looks, because Axios reports roughly 80 percent of Unlimited subscribers signed up through the bundle with Disney+ and Hulu rather than buying the tier on its own. So the standalone Unlimited increase reaches a narrower slice of the subscriber base than the headline number implies.

This is the first price increase for ESPN's standalone streaming service since it rolled out last August.

For anyone holding the ad-free trio, the annual arithmetic is the part worth looking at: $3 a month is $36 across a year, which is a larger jump than the $1 monthly bump on Select and closer in scale to the $20 added to the Unlimited annual plan.