Bad news: Apple’s raising subscription prices. Apple Arcade is jumping from $4.99 to $6.99, News+ from $9.99 to $12.99, and Apple TV+ from $6.99 to $9.99. (Remember when the latter was $4.99?) If you subscribe yearly, Apple TV+ is going from $69 to $99.
Perhaps you’re preparing your wallet for these increases. Or, if you’re sick of price hikes, you might just cancel your sub altogether. Before you do either, know there is a way to lock in your subscription at the old rate for a month, or, in Apple TV+’s case, a year. But you’ll need to act fast.
Update (10/26): It seems Apple has already updated its pricing, so it’s likely you won’t be able to take advantage of the cheaper subscription at this point. The below steps walk through what it took to subscribe to the previous pricing, so feel free to give it a try and see if the prices are still available to you.
If you haven’t subscribed to these Apple services in the past, you may be stuck with the price increase. Lucky for you, you can take advantage of any free trials still offered. But for anyone who has an active or expired Apple service subscription, you can bypass the price hike right now in your subscription settings.
Here’s how it works: Open Settings, tap your name at the top, then choose Subscriptions. Here, you’ll see all active and inactive subscriptions attached to your Apple ID. In my case, I have expired subscriptions for Apple News+ and and Apple TV+. If I tap either, I have the option to renew at the old rate, not the new one.
But it’s better news for Apple TV+. While Apple News+ only offers a monthly subscription, Apple TV+ comes in either monthly or yearly subs. If you tap Apple TV+, then choose See All Plans, you can choose from either the old $6.99 monthly rate, or the $69.00 per year option.
If you only want to commit to the month, you can still save a little money before the new prices kick in for you, too.