Streaming services tend to go hard when it comes to Black Friday deals. It’s the best time to sign up for most streamers, hands down, as you can typically score some serious savings on monthly membership fees.
But here’s the thing: the prices of nearly every streaming service rise dramatically every year (it’s honestly getting out of hand). And this year is no different. We’ve seen Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, HBO Max, Apple TV+, Peacock, Fubo, and YouTube TV all increase their costs in 2025, which makes us skeptical of what sort of streaming deals we’ll see this holiday season.
Still, we’re holding out hope that our favorite streaming deal of 2023 and 2024 will make a return in 2025: 99-cent Hulu subscriptions.
Will price hikes impact Black Friday streaming deals in 2025?
There’s really no direct answer to this question, as in years past we’ve seen some streamers adjust their Black Friday discounts to coincide with price increases and others revive the same deals in spite of them. For example: In 2022, Peacock offered users an entire year of ad-supported streaming for just $1 per month. In 2023, they upped the price to $1.99 per month for one year. Then last year, after a price hike, they chopped that in half and only offered six months of ad-supported streaming for $1.99 per month.
On the other hand, Hulu upped the cost of its basic plan last year from $7.99 to $9.99 per month, yet it still dropped the best streaming deal for the second year in a row — ad-supported subscriptions for just $0.99 per month for an entire year. This gives us hope that despite the 2025 price hike — from $9.99 to $11.99 per month — the 99-cent deal will once again be resurrected.
The Black Friday deal we’re hoping to see on Hulu
If Hulu does the unthinkable and revives the best streaming deal of 2023 and 2024, you could get an entire year of streaming for less than 12 bucks. After the latest price hike, that would mean you’d get an entire year of streaming for less than the price of a single month. Unreal.
Since the streamer kept the same deal alive after a $2 price hike last year, we’re hopeful the same thing will happen in 2025. But TBH, even if they inflate the Black Friday deal to $1.99 per month for a year, we’d still be satisfied. That’s still less than $24 for a whole year of streaming.
Mashable Deals
Besides the recent price hike, another thing that might complicate Hulu’s Black Friday plans is the expected merge with Disney+. By 2026, Disney plans on folding the Hulu app into Disney+ to create a “fully integrated unified app experience.” Users will still be able to sign up for Hulu as a standalone service, but there’s no word yet on how the pricing will be effected overall when the full integration unfolds.
Why we love Hulu
Hulu is the streaming home of Mashable’s favorite show of 2024, Shōgun, as well as one of our favorites of 2025, Dying for Sex. It’s also where you’ll find FX originals (like The Bear), episodes of ABC shows the day after they air, Neon movies fresh out of the theaters, and plenty of Hulu Original Series we love — like Only Murders in the Building and Chad Powers. It holds its own as one of the most well-rounded streaming services you can get. At $11.99 per month, it’s one of the most expensive ad-supported streamers, which is why we’d love to see the 99-cent Black Friday deal revived.
