Plex doubles Plex Pass price, but there’s a way to avoid the hike

Streaming media platform Plex is more than doubling the cost of lifetime access to its Plex Pass subscription, but there is a way to avoid it.

The platform, which aggregates free streaming content in a single interface, also offers a paid-for tier that among other things makes users personal media collections available to enjoy and download wherever users roam. Currently and since 2015, it can be unlocked for a one-off $119 payment.

However, the company is increasing the lifetime fee to $249.99 (a whopping 118% hike) as of April 29 this year. That gives you around six weeks to snap-up forever access at the current rate, if you’ve been pondering it. This doesn’t affect current lifetime subscribers. However, the monthly cost is rising from $4.99 to $6.99, while the annual fee will renew at $69.99 after April 29, which is a big $30 increase on the current price.

To be fair to Plex, it’s been a decade since it increased the price of Plex Pass, not just a few months (glares at Netflix) and the company is giving users ample opportunity to lock-in that 2015 price forever.

In a blog post, the company said: “These changes weren’t made lightly, and we’ve spent a lot of time weighing the best path forward to ensure we can continue to balance value with a best-in-class personal media experience for years to come.”

To sweeten the deal somewhat, Plex is dropping the mobile unlock fee on iOS and Android, and is adding Common Sense Media reviews to the proposition. Plex Pass members also get the ability to skip intros and credits, rewinding by up 30 seconds when you resume after pausing content, recording of live broadcast TV to your device and the ability to skip ads in recorded content.

The array of free Plex services like streaming from a laptop to a TV and access to over 50,000 movies from over 600 channels remains unaltered.