In a May 19 post on the service’s official blog, Plex announced that the flat price of a Lifetime Pass would triple starting July 1. While the Lifetime Pass currently costs $249.99, once the change takes effect the price will jump to $749.99. Plex clarified that this price will only apply to new Lifetime Pass purchases starting July 1; anyone who has already purchased the pass at the current or previous price will not have to pay again. Even so, such a massive price hike doesn’t sit well with users, some of whom have speculated that it’s a heavy-handed method to attract new customers to Plex’s monthly subscription models and away from Lifetime Pass.
One-time purchase upgrade will cost $749.99
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In addition to its basic free service, which lets you use a smart TV to host content, Plex currently offers two main service plans, with five pricing tiers between them. The basic Remote Pass, available for $1.99 per month and $19.99 per year, lets you stream media, create collections, and connect devices together. The Plex Pass tier, meanwhile, is available for $6.99 per month, $69.99 per year, and until the price change takes effect, $249.99 for a lifetime pass. This tier adds additional quality of life features, such as skipping opens, downloading personal media from anywhere, and rewinding when resuming.
In its blog post, Plex said it had previously considered abandoning Lifetime Pass altogether, as recurring subscriptions primarily fund the service’s continued development. However, it recognizes that the tier is a valuable option for many in the community and therefore increases the price to better reflect the “real, ongoing value of the software we are committed to creating and maintaining for years to come.” The release also includes a development roadmap for additional features planned for the Lifetime Pass tier, such as download improvements and restored support for music and photo libraries.
Given the monumental price hike, Plex users are, unsurprisingly, not happy. On the r/self-hosted Subreddit, reactions to the news range from anger to skepticism, with one user pointing out that the proposed roadmap includes features that were removed from previous iterations of Plex. Several users speculated that, rather than reflecting the true value of the service, this was simply Plex’s way of pressuring users to stay on the relatively cheaper recurring payment plans rather than the one-time Lifetime Pass payment.
