Which tiers are growing and which are shrinking?

MetricShare of subscriber base and gross adds by plan tier over time

Unit% of subscriptions and % of gross adds per tier

Stacked area showing absolute subscriber counts by tier over time. Watch Premium share growing. Build by counting active subs per tier per period. Positive mix shift compounds ARPU. Example: Basic 280K to 270K; Standard 400K to 525K; Premium 120K to 705K (premium taking over).

ARPU

Average revenue per user. Revenue in a period divided by active users in that period.

US premium SVOD services offering both ad and ad-free plans (Antenna panel, 2023-2026), corroborated by Deloitte consumer surveys; shares exclude free tiers and MVPD/telco distribution. · Two measures of ad-tier penetration circulate: share of subscriptions at services offering both plans (Antenna, 46% at Q1'25, 110M US ad plans by Q1'26) and share of consumers with at least one ad tier (Deloitte, 54% in the 2025 survey rising to 68% in 2026). They answer different questions; both confirm the mix is shifting down-tier structurally, not cyclically.

Stacked bars where the premium tier shrinks in absolute subscribers while all growth pools in the lowest-ARPU tier with no offsetting ad or add-on revenue line.

Entry tier rising from 35% to 55% of base in a year, blended ARPU down 12%, and ad revenue per entry-tier member still under $2/month.

• Treat the entry/ad tier as an acquisition engine, not a demotion: ad plans drove 71% of premium SVOD net adds over nine quarters and 65% of ad-tier takers were entirely new users (Antenna), so price the gap for total-monetization parity at scale
• Watch the switch matrix monthly: only 11% of ad-tier subscribers were direct down-switches from ad-free in Antenna's data; if your down-switch share runs materially above that, the premium tier lacks a feature reason to stay
• Route tentpole and promo traffic to mid-tier intro offers rather than defaulting everything to the cheapest plan; Black Friday promo cohorts retained 57% vs 43% at nine months, so promo tiering shapes long-run mix
• Use bundles with telco or partner services to lock commitment terms on higher tiers, the mechanism Deloitte identifies for churn reduction in mature markets

1. AntennaState of Subscriptions Q2'25: Adds and Ads · 2025 · US consumer purchase panel, 7 premium SVOD services with ad plans ~100M US ad plans; ad plans 46% of subscriptions where offered (+7pts YoY); 57% of Q1'25 gross adds; 71% of net adds over nine quarters; 86% of consumers offered an ad plan twice or more chose ads cdn.prod.website-files.com ↗
2. AntennaThe ad-supported majority · 2026 · US consumer purchase panel 110M US ad-supported premium SVOD subscriptions by Q1'26, up from ~100M a year earlier and 53M two years prior; Disney+ and Hulu each saw 70% of gross adds via ad tiers antenna.live ↗
3. Antenna via DeadlineStreaming ad tiers make up nearly half of US subscriptions · 2025 · US consumer purchase panel Of ad-tier subscribers: 65% were new users, 23% win-backs from cancelled ad-free plans, 11% direct down-switches from ad-free deadline.com ↗
4. Deloitte2025 Digital Media Trends · 2025 · n=3,595 US consumers 54% of SVOD subscribers had at least one ad-supported tier deloitte.com ↗
5. Deloitte2026 Digital Media Trends press release · 2026 · n=3,575 US consumers 68% of streaming subscribers now pay for an ad tier, up over 20pts from 2024 deloitte.com ↗
6. Antenna via NewscastStudioPremium SVOD churn stabilized as growth decelerated in 2025 · 2026 · US consumer purchase panel Category growth slowed to 7% in 2025 from 12%, making mix and monetization per subscriber the growth levers newscaststudio.com ↗