People Are Opening Netflix Less. What That Means for Your Bill

Netflix members are opening the app on fewer days a month, and each one is watching less. Bloomberg reported this on Sunday, citing internal company data.

Netflix’s own executives have already said where US growth will come from instead. In mature markets like the US, growth will “skew towards ARM and advertising,” co-CEO Greg Peters told analysts on October 20. ARM is Netflix’s term for average revenue per membership.

That matters for anyone paying the bill. The ad-free Standard plan now costs $19.99 a month, up 29% since January 2022. US consumer prices rose about 20% over the same stretch.

Netflix has raised US prices in four rounds since early 2022. It told investors that members reacted to the latest one as expected.

What Bloomberg found inside Netflix

Bloomberg’s scoop rests on unnamed people and confidential data. Its site blocked our request to open the story. We read the full text as republished by Hindustan Times, which carries Bloomberg’s byline.

According to Bloomberg, Netflix tracks how often members use the app with a metric called “qualified play days,” or QPD. Customers aren’t opening it on as many days a month as they did a couple of years ago.

Total viewing time rose a couple of percentage points in the first half of 2026. That came only from added members. Each member is watching less.

Bloomberg reported that the slide began after the password-sharing crackdown. Executives first assumed it was a one-off, since fewer people now used each account.

Netflix tested that crackdown in Latin America in 2022. It then rolled out “paid sharing” in more than 100 countries on May 23, 2023, its shareholder letter says. Spotify is now running its own in-person household check on Family plans.

The drop has been modest so far. US churn has held steady at 2%, the industry’s best, Bloomberg reported, citing the research firm Antenna.

The app tracker Apptopia found more US subscribers skipping the app altogether. Their share rose 16.6% in the third quarter from a year earlier. Netflix declined to comment to Bloomberg on its internal metrics.

What Netflix told investors on October 20

Netflix didn’t publish QPD, but its third-quarter letter to shareholders acknowledged the worry. “We know there’s some investor concern about our view hours growth,” it said. Revenue grew 12% to $12.9 billion, the slowest of the five quarters the letter reports.

Advertising is running behind plan. Netflix now expects about $2.7 billion in 2026 ad revenue, down from roughly $3 billion. It blamed a slower rollout of some ad products. That’s the $300 million shortfall Bloomberg cited.

Co-CEO Ted Sarandos was blunt about the US on the earnings call. “The U.S. is also working. It’s just not growing as fast as it could or as fast as we’d like,” he said, according to the call transcript published by Fortune.

Earlier this month Netflix fired its content chief, Bela Bajaria, Bloomberg reported. Sarandos introduced Peter Rice as her replacement on the call, and the letter confirms staff cuts.

Peters said the company’s 2026 price changes “have gone well.” He also argued that US subscribers pay “the least per hour of viewing” compared with other subscription streaming services in the country. Churn in the US improved from a year earlier, the letter says.

Netflix’s price steps since 2022

What do those levers mean in dollars? We rebuilt Netflix’s US price history from its help centre, its shareholder letters and dated reports of each change.

Sources for each row: TechCrunch for January 2022, Netflix for the ads plan launch, the October 2023 shareholder letter, and Fox Television Stations’ reports from January 2025 and March 2026. Current prices match the help centre.

Standard has outpaced inflation since 2022

Standard rose 29% from its January 2022 price. The consumer price index rose 19.8% from January 2022 to September 2026, in Bureau of Labor Statistics data republished by FRED. Had Standard tracked inflation, it would cost about $18.56. Premium is up 35% over the same period.

The gap between the ads plan and Standard has also widened. It was $8.50 a month when the ads plan launched and is $11 now. The ads plan rose $1 in each round, while Standard rose $2.50 and then $2. Over a year, Standard costs $239.88 and the ads plan $107.88.

The rounds have also come closer together. The gaps between the last four rounds were 21 months, 15 months and 14 months.

Live sports are Netflix’s reason to open the app

Bloomberg reported that Netflix is pushing into podcasts and live sports to win back attention. In the Q3 letter, live events get the space. Netflix calls this quarter its “biggest quarterly live slate to date.” It includes the NFL’s first Thanksgiving Eve game, a Christmas Day doubleheader and the Tyson Fury vs. Anthony Joshua fight.

Sarandos said live events “drive new membership, they add fuel to our ad revenues, they please our existing members.”

Podcasts and games get no discussion in the letter beyond its legal boilerplate. On the call, Sarandos said roughly 95% of spending goes to the core of series, films and live events. He called newer areas “early-stage initiatives.” Games are already included in every US plan, the help centre says.

Our analysis: what this could mean for your bill

This section is our reading of the facts above, not a forecast from Netflix. The company hasn’t announced another US price change.

Netflix has told investors that US growth will come mainly from charging more per member and selling more ads. It treats churn as its proof that members accept higher prices, and churn is still low. Bloomberg’s data points the other way for lighter viewers.

Peters’ “least per hour” argument gets weaker for a household that opens the app on fewer days. The price stays the same while the hours shrink.

The ad plan is where Netflix’s interests and a cost-conscious viewer’s interests meet. Ad revenue is behind target, and the price gap to Standard keeps widening. The ads plan made up over 60% of first-quarter sign-ups in ad markets, the Q1 letter says. Switching saves $132 a year at today’s prices, but Netflix shows a lock icon on some titles in that plan.

If Netflix kept the 14-to-21-month rhythm of recent rounds, the next change would land in mid-2027 or later. Nothing obliges it to keep that rhythm. Streaming is one line in a household budget that has also absorbed home electricity prices up 6.9% this year.

The first test of the live-events bet comes on Wednesday, November 25. That night Netflix streams the NFL’s first Thanksgiving Eve game, with a U2 halftime show. Netflix’s next quarterly letter will show whether that slate moved viewing hours.