Netflix has an ambitious financial goal that all but guarantees five years of price increases. Realistically, Netflix just being in business guarantees higher subscription prices over time, but this target comes with an aggressive deadline.
Netflix wants $1 trillion
Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal reported that Netflix has set two goals to achieve by 2030. Both are goals that Apple once set and achieved.
First, Netflix wants to increase its market cap valuation from where it stands today at just below $500 billion to $1 trillion over the next five years. Netflix is valued at $479 billion today so it will need to more than double its market cap.
How will Netflix double its valuation? That’s where the second goal becomes relevant. Netflix also wants to double its revenue by 2030.
And it needs your money
While there are endless ways for Netflix to grow its revenue by 2x between now and 2030, the simplest money button to press has consistently been price increases over time.
Harder tasks include growing the customer base, expanding the size of its relatively new advertising business, and entering new markets. Netflix could also add more features to the product. A recent example of this includes the addition of streaming video games.
Perhaps Spotify and YouTube are models for what Netflix has in mind. Spotify expanded its advertising and subscription music business to include podcast exclusives and audiobook downloads. YouTube is powered by ads, but it also has a competing music subscription business, an ad-free tier, and a live TV package.
Price increases never hurt Netflix
Netflix has reconfigured its different membership tiers a lot in recent years, but it currently offers three options:
Netflix with ads
- Ad-supported, all mobile games and most movies and TV shows are available. A lock icon will appear on unavailable titles.
- Watch on 2 supported devices at a time
- Watch in 1080p (Full HD)
- Download on 2 supported devices at a time
Standard
- Unlimited ad-free movies, TV shows, and mobile games
- Watch on 2 supported devices at a time
- Watch in 1080p (Full HD)
- Download on 2 supported devices at a time
- Option to add 1 extra member who doesn’t live with you
Premium
- Unlimited ad-free movies, TV shows, and mobile games
- Watch on 4 supported devices at a time
- Watch in 4K (Ultra HD) + HDR
- Download on 6 supported devices at a time
- Option to add up to 2 extra members who don’t live with you
- Netflix spatial audio
In the United States, these plans go for $7.99/month for Netflix with ads, $17.99/month for Standard, and $24.99/month for Premium. Netflix increased its plans by $1, $1.50, and $2 per month, respectively, back in January.
Prior to January 2025, Netflix left prices unchanged since October 2023. Going 12-15 months without a price increase is possible, but that might be more surprising than if Netflix bumped prices again or added a higher-priced tier. People won’t stop subscribing to Netflix, so Netflix won’t stop raising prices.
How high is too high? Between 2015 and 2025, Netflix increased the price of its premium tier from $11.99 to $24.99. One hopes that Netflix would need to bundle in additional content of significant value to viewers to bring the price to $30 in 2030, but the company has a track record of defying gravity when it comes to price jumps.
That’s also what makes the ad tier more interesting for the business. Netflix with ads has existed for less than two years, but it effectively makes the price of viewing on a single screen unchanged over 10 years. There’s just, you know, ads. The ads tier has also helped soften the blow of the standard tier moving from $8.99 to $17.99 during the same period.
Apple-like goals
Apple, of course, first reached the $1 trillion market cap milestone in August 2018. The company is now worth $3.17 trillion. Apple’s big climb came after Apple CEO Tim Cook publicly told investors and analysts that the company planned to double its services revenue between January 2017 and 2020. App Store subscriptions and in-app purchases delivered for Apple.
Netflix isn’t being as direct with its mission to hit $1 trillion market cap and double its revenue. Below is the transcript that Netflix helpfully provides from its most recent earnings call:
Spencer Wang
Vice President of Finance, Corporate Development & Investor Relations
We’ll now take questions from the analyst community, and we will begin first with our results, outlook and forecast. And our first question comes from Robert Fishman of MoffettNathanson. Robert’s question is, the Wall Street Journal report this week discussed Netflix’s internal goal of doubling revenue and tripling operating income by 2030. How should investors think about Netflix leaning into more content spending over the next 5 years?
Theodore A. Sarandos
Co-CEO, President & Director
I’ll take this. And thanks, Robert. Look, we have a unique culture. And part of it is this open information operating style, and it has served us very, very well. On rare and very disappointing occasions, our confidential and internal discussions can leak into the press.
And while we wouldn’t normally comment about leaked internal information, we do want to be extra clear about this. We often have internal meetings and we talk about long-term aspirations. But it’s important to note that this is not the same as forecast. Our operating plans is the same as our external forecast and guidance. We don’t have a 5-year forecast or 5-year guidance. But you can assume that we are long-range thinking, and that we’re working hard every day to build the most loved and valued entertainment company for all of our stakeholders.
Gregory K. Peters
Co-CEO, President & Director
And maybe to pivot the conversation too — we’re happy to comment on and discuss the detail. We do have big long-term aspirations and those aspirations are really grounded in the potential for growth that we see in the business. Now we think we’ve got a pretty good business today, over $40 billion in revenue. We’ve got over $300 million paid households. Those represent an audience of over 700 million individuals. We’re leading in streaming view share. But we also think that we’re a minority of our addressable market, our potential across any of those measures. If you think about engagement, we’re less than 10% of TV hours for an audience or a connected households perspective.
We still got hundreds of millions of folks to sign up. And from a revenue perspective, we’re about 6% of consumer spend and ad revenue in the countries we serve in the areas that we serve. So we believe we’ve got plenty of room to grow our engagement, our revenue and our profit. And as Ted said, do that to become the most valued and loved entertainment company for all of our stakeholders.
While Apple doesn’t provide its own earnings call transcript, we can always rely on Jason Snell at Six Colors to do the work for everyone.
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