Crunchyroll is increasing prices | Mashable
Crunchyroll is raising its prices again.
In an announcement released Monday, the anime streaming service said U.S. subscribers will see price hikes across the board starting with their next billing cycle after March 4, 2026. The Fan plan goes from $7.99 to $9.99 per month, Mega Fan goes from $11.99 to $13.99, and Ultimate Fan goes from $15.99 to $17.99.
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In the blog post, the company says this is the first price increase for the Fan tier since 2019 and is intended to support continued investment in anime content, features, and member benefits.
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On paper, Crunchyroll offers more. New benefits include Fan-level offline downloads, expanded device support, profile controls, and deeper integration with its Game Vault service and digital manga service. The company also points to its massive library of over 50,000 episodes to justify the higher cost.
Context matters here, though. A few weeks earlier, Crunchyroll quietly announced that it was ending its ad-supported free streaming plan, officially closing the door on no-cost anime viewing starting January 1, 2026. The move followed years of slowly phasing out what the free tier offered, making the paywall inevitable at some point.
Together, these changes indicate a broader shift in how Crunchyroll positions itself. Crunchyroll is betting that expanded features, a growing content library, and additional perks will be enough to justify the higher cost as the platform moves forward into 2026.
