The Disney Bundle Just Got a Major Upgrade with Max

Brian Welk
·2 min read

Here’s a bundle we can get behind. Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery are teaming up on a mega-streaming bundle that will package Disney+, Hulu, and Max for one price.

The bundle will be available starting this summer. Pricing has not been revealed.

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Currently, the Disney+ and Hulu bundle is $9.99 per month for an ad-supported plan and $19.99 per month without ads. Max runs you $9.99 with ads or $99.99 for an annual plan, and $15.99 per month or $149.99 per year for its basic ad-free plan. The premium plan is $19.99 per month.

Disney and Warner Bros. said in a statement that the ad-supported and ad-free bundles will be available for purchase on any of the three streaming platforms’ websites.

This bundle is not to be confused with the jointly owned sports streaming service coming later this year between Disney, WBD, and Fox. We’re still waiting on a name for that, presuming it isn’t actually “Spulu” as the industry has taken to calling it.

CNBC reports that Disney will act as the distributor and Max/WBD will get a “fee” for every new subscriber to the bundle.

Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has advocated for the streaming bundle for over a year, explaining that one of the major challenges in streaming is consumers have trouble finding the content they love and want to watch. Apps like Reelgood and Just Watch help address that issue, but real integration within TVs or platforms has its own roadblocks.

In the short term, Disney was the first to realize that a bundles help keep consumers loyal. You’re less likely to churn out as a subscriber if it means canceling not one but two (or three, if you also want ESPN+) services at once. Data from last year showed that Disney+ had the lowest churn rate of any of the major streamers at just 2 percent.

Warner Bros. Discovery dipped its toes into new ways to bundle when it partnered with Verizon as a means of getting both Max and Netflix while paying for the services through their Verizon wireless bill. We’ve seen other smaller bundles throughout the industry, and Paramount+ would love to cozy up with another streamer in order to compete, but combining Disney+, Hulu, and Max is the best shot that Disney and WBD have to challenge Netflix’s nearly 270 million global subscribers.

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