Why indie streamer Nebula decided it was time for a price increase

Just as the highly anticipated 11th season of the hit travel competition series “Jet Lag: The Game” launches on Nebula, the indie streamer is implementing its first major price increase on September 1st.

“Big” is relative, of course, as the creator-owned streamer, which currently costs $5 per month and $50 per year, will increase its fee by a whopping $1, to $6 per month and $60 per year. That compares to Netflix, Max and similar mega-streamers, which also recently saw a round of price hikes.

Nebula also offers a special deal that the much larger streamers don't have: special codes promoted by Nebula creators in their content that offer a 40% discount on the new annual membership price, down to $36.

And all of these changes only apply to new subscribers, while Nebula says it will continue to honor current rates for existing customers – and announced this information back on August 1 to give non-customers ample time to secure their lower membership rates.

But a price increase is a price increase, no matter how small, and Nebula CEO Dave Wiskus has an explanation for the business decision and why it only applies to new customers.

First, it's important to note that when Nebula launched in 2019, it was offered as a standalone subscription or bundled with then-partner Curiosity Stream. That offering was discontinued more than a year and a half ago, and Nebula's standalone pricing hasn't changed since then.

“There are several things at play here. First, our price hasn’t really changed since we launched,” said Wiskus diversity“There have been a few changes, but for a long time we were part of that package. In the era of doing our own thing, we haven't seen any price increases in the last year and a half, and that's in large part because we've had to explore the relationship with subscribers. Are people staying signed up? What are the marketing dynamics? What are the audience retention dynamics? What happens when we start adding more prestige content and doing bigger original productions? And we've found that one of the most common requests is: is there a way to pay you more? No joke, we get that question all the time through our support. People ask if there's a way to pay us more. And I think, unlike the big streamers, what it comes down to with our audience is that they want to support the creators. They want to support this business venture that the creators have come together and started. They're there for us, not just for the stuff that's being made. And when we look at the increase in value of Nebula over the last few years – the new creators we've brought on board – we're now over 200 creators – the original productions have gotten bigger and bigger with the originals, we're trying bolder things, we're moving towards more prestigious television formats – the value of what the subscriber gets for their money has increased.”

Wiskus isn't exaggerating: Over the past year, Nebula has significantly expanded its content offerings and production pipeline, establishing a film studio and signing partnership deals with Morning Brew and Spotify. Notable current and upcoming Nebula titles include “Jet Lag: The Game” Season 11, “Identiteaze,” “Dracula's Ex-Girlfriend” from “House of the Dragon” Season 2 newcomer Abigail Thorn, “17 Pages,” “Boomers,” “The Getaway” and “The Dinner Plan,” to name a few.

“And to get ourselves a little bit more in line with what a streaming service of our level would and should cost, relatively speaking, by being respectful of the audience and thinking about the fact that we want to expand and do more, invest more to create more things, to provide more value to subscribers — it just seems that sooner or later inflation is going to catch up,” Wiskus said. “Sooner or later, you're going to have to make changes. And we wanted to think not only about what a change looks like now, but what our policy is for making changes. How do we explain it to customers? How do that conversation play out? How transparent can we be? So the idea here is to make a small change, signal how we're making changes, and kind of get ourselves in line with inflation and the value that we're providing.”

Wiskus also notes that he has no plans to increase prices for current Nebula subscribers any time soon—and hopes he never has to. And he tried to make that stance clear through direct communication with his customers ahead of the September price increase.

“It would cost us a lot to raise prices for existing subscribers,” Wiskus wrote on Nebula's subreddit page last week in response to a subscriber's question about the upcoming price increase. “The plan is to grow so much that the percentage of people using the old prices is just not worth upsetting them anymore. But legally speaking, never say never.”