Hold onto your hats, Plex users: A huge Plex Pass price hike is incoming, along with big changes for Plex Media Server users who want to stream their content remotely.
After holding the line in terms of price for 10 years, a lifetime Plex Pass—a subscription that offers such features as DVR functionality, media downloads, hardware video transcoding, commercial skipping, and other perks—will soon cost $249.99, more than double the current price of $119.99.
Monthly and annual Plex Pass subscriptions are getting price hikes too, although their increases aren’t quite as steep as the lifetime options. Monthly Plex Passes will soon cost $6.99 a month, up from $4.99/month, while an annual Plex Pass will cost $69.99 a year, up from $39.99/year.
Those price changes will go into effect April 29, 2025, a little more than a month from now. So if you want to snag a lifetime Plex Pass at the current $119.99 price, you’d better get to it.
There’s more news, too, and Plex Media Server users aren’t going to like it.
Once the new Plex Pass prices kick in, remote streaming of content in personal Plex media libraries won’t be free anymore. That means if you want to stream your Plex Media Server content outside your home—or, crucially, if you want to stream media from another Plex Media Server user who doesn’t have a Plex Pass—you’ll need to pay up.
As part of the big change, Plex is serving up a new, cheaper way to stream personal Plex library content on remote networks.
For $1.99 a month or $19.99 a year, the Remote Watch Pass will let you stream your own Plex Media Server files remotely, or stream from someone else’s Plex media library who doesn’t have their own Plex Pass or Remote Watch Pass. Of course, the Remote Watch Pass strips away other Plex Pass benefits, such as DVR functionality and downloads.
The changes to remote streaming only apply to the upcoming “new experience” Plex apps, not the current (but soon to be deprecated) apps. We’re expecting Plex to make the switch to the new apps within the next few months, and Plex is reserving the right to eventually drop free remote streaming from its older apps, too.
Plex also noted that the remote streaming changes apply only to “movie/TV/video” media, not to music or photos.
The decision to move personal media streaming behind a paywall comes on the heels of Plex’s announcement that it was dropping “watch together” functionality from its “new experience” apps.
While remote Plex Media Server streaming is going behind a paywall, a formerly paid Plex feature is about to be free. Plex’s revamped Android and iOS apps will no longer require a Plex Pass or a one-time $4.99 fee to remove playback restrictions.
In its announcement, Plex said it’s hiking its prices to “keep up with rising costs” and “to ensure both Plex Pass and our support for personal media continue to thrive.”
The latest changes to the Plex Pass are easily the biggest since the subscription program was rolled out 10 years ago.
Among the features available with a Plex Pass subscription include using your Plex server as a DVR for over-the-air TV broadcasts, downloading Plex Media Server content for offline playback, the ability to use local hardware for HD and 4K video transcoding, ad skipping for recorded TV, real-time lyrics for tunes, and a dedicated app for monitoring your Plex server activity and performance.
Author: Ben Patterson, Senior Writer, TechHive
Ben has been writing about technology and consumer electronics for more than 20 years. A PCWorld contributor since 2014, Ben joined TechHive in 2019, where he has covered everything from smart speakers and soundbars to smart lights and security cameras. Ben's articles have also appeared in PC Magazine, TIME, Wired, CNET, Men's Fitness, Mobile Magazine, and more. Ben holds a master's degree in English literature.