The streaming giant is working on more ad formats, like ones that appear when you pause what you’re watching.
The streaming giant is working on more ad formats, like ones that appear when you pause what you’re watching.
Image: Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Emma Roth is a news writer who covers the streaming wars, consumer tech, crypto, social media, and much more. Previously, she was a writer and editor at MUO.
Netflix has more than doubled the number of people watching its ad-supported tier over the last year. At its upfront presentation for advertisers on Wednesday, the company revealed that the $7.99 per month plan now reaches more than 94 million users around the world each month – a big increase from the 40 million it reported in 2024 and the 70 million it revealed last November.
The streaming giant’s ad tier has seen rapid growth since its debut in 2022. As the service grows more comfortable with ads, it’s getting ready to debut more formats by the end of 2026, including pause ads, which it first started experimenting with last year, and interactive ads that appear in the middle of what you’re watching. Netflix stopped reporting how many total subscribers it adds each quarter, but it last said it had over 300 million globally in January.
Amy Reinhard, Netflix’s president of advertising, said the streaming service has “the most engaged audience anywhere,” with subscribers on its ad-supported tier spending an average of 41 hours per month on the service.
The new ad formats are part of Netflix’s in-house advertising platform, which is now live in the US after arriving in Canada. It plans to bring the platform to all 12 countries with ad-supported plans by June. “The foundations of our ads business are in place,” Reinhard said. “And going forward, the pace of progress will be even faster.”
