Verizon quietly taxes your netflix perk as streamer doubles down on hikes
Three extra dollars will vanish from your bank account on May 6 if you’re on Verizon’s myPlan streaming bundle. The carrier is passing Netflix’s latest price bump straight to customers, raising the Netflix-and-Max combo from $10 to $13 and trimming real-world savings to a measly seven bucks.
The math that just got uglier
Until last week, Verizon could advertise a perk that shaved roughly $9 off the combined retail cost of Netflix with ads ($8.99) and Max with ads ($9.99). After the hike, the bundle still looks cheaper on paper, but the cushion has shrunk to pocket-change territory. One Reddit user who did the sums grumbled that after taxes and fees the “deal” is now within 50 cents of buying both services a la carte—without the two-year phone-lock handcuffs.
Verizon’s support page update, spotted late Thursday, blames “recent price adjustments by content providers.” Translation: Netflix’s second increase in fourteen months just ricocheted through the carrier’s accounting department. Anyone on a promotional trial is safe until the clock runs out; then the $13 rate snaps into place automatically.
Schulman’s ‘customer-first’ vow meets cold accounting
CEO Dan Schulman spent February telling investors that “empty price increases” helped bleed 2.1 million subscribers last year and promised a “culture shift.” Absorbing three dollars for a core perk would have cost Verizon maybe 90 cents per user in wholesale pricing—small change against churn. Instead, the company copied T-Mobile’s playbook from January: eat the increase on the cheapest tier, let premium users swallow the rest. The messaging writes itself in reverse: loyalty matters, except when it doesn’t.
Carriers love to dangle streaming freebies because they sound priceless while costing wholesale. Netflix knows this and has weaponized the asymmetry: raise retail prices, let partners absorb the optics, watch ARPU climb. Revenue surged 16 % last year; internal forecasts leaked to Variety target $50 billion for 2026. The streamer’s break-up check from the abandoned Warner deal—$2.8 billion—already sits in the war chest, yet the squeeze continues.
What you can actually do
Cord-cutters have three immediate moves: downgrade to the ad-supported tiers only, cancel the carrier bundle and subscribe directly for flexibility, or rotate services month-to-month. A growing subset is choosing door number three: churn among Netflix, Max, and the newcomers averages 7 % a month, double pre-pandemic rates. The buffet is endless; loyalty is not.
Bottom line: carrier bundles are a coupon, not a contract. The moment Netflix sneezes, the discount shrinks. Keep your thumb on the cancel button—because Verizon just showed it won’t eat the cost, and Netflix is already mapping the next hike.