(Credit: Plex)
Plex is raising the price of its premium subscription service for the first time in a decade.
"We’ve held out for more than 10 years, keeping good company with AriZona Iced Tea (tall-boy legends) and Costco (we love a good deal on a hot dog and soda)," Plex says. "But now, in order for us to keep up with rising costs and remain committed to ensuring both Plex Pass and our support for personal media continue to thrive—it’s time."
On April 29, a monthly Plex Pass subscription will go from $4.99 to $6.99. The yearly subscription is getting a $30 increase, from $39.99 to $69.99. Plex recommends locking in a Lifetime Plex Pass subscription now for $119.99 before it jumps to $249.99—a $130 increase.
You can always stick with the free version of Plex, which offers basic functionalities like playing your own shows on its servers, as well as Plex's movies, shows, and live TV products. Plex Pass is a more advanced service that comes with perks like offline access, themes, and hardware transcoding. It's geared toward media lovers who use the service to keep their personal collections of movies, music, and TV organized. "We are all in on the continued success of Plex Pass and personal media," Plex says.
The subscription price increases will fund new features and future offerings. Plex lists three new capabilities, the first being a family-focused integration with Common Sense Media, bringing "extras" for Plex Pass holders. The other two are for more hands-on, technical users. That includes a new server management app that works on browsers and mobile, which gives "clients a better curation experience with more visibility into who is on your server." Plex is also building a new API for server integrations, with the ability to create custom metadata agents.
Also today, Plex announced it will start charging for remote playback, meaning playback when not on the same local network as the server. "The reality is that we need more resources to continue putting forth the best personal media experience," Plex says. "This—alongside the new Plex Pass pricing—will help provide those resources."
Starting on April 29, you either need a Plex Pass subscription to do remote playback, or you have to buy a new subscription called a Remote Watch Pass. It'll be available for an introductory price of $1.99/month or $19.99/year.
Finally, Plex is updating its privacy policy and terms of service for accounts created after March 20, 2025, updating the section titled, "Who does Plex share or sell Personal Data with?"
The language is pretty broad, but says it will share data with third-party service providers, such as "payment processors, businesses and analytics providers, content providers, marketers, and cloud service providers." Plex also says it will sell some of your personal information for "targeted advertising," but you have some opt-out options. Plex says it may also share your data to satisfy laws, regulations, or government requests, to defend itself, or facilitate a financial transaction requiring the transfer of personal data.
There is one bit of good news: Plex is removing a one-time activation fee for Plex Pass on Android and iOS mobile apps that was needed to remove a "one-minute playback limitation when streaming content from a Plex Media Server." Going forward, there is no one-minute playback limitation.