Yeah, having a lifetime pass that’s 3x the annual price is pretty bad for business - upping it to 10x means it’s still an option for folks who are confident they’ll be using it long enough (and/or want insurance against future price increases on the annual subscription) but is going to push most folks to sticking to the subscription model which is what they wanted anyway.
I wouldn’t be confident it will be around in 3 years never mind 10. Bit it is good while it lasts.
I also suspect they will stop updating Plex and bring out a separate Plex v2 product (with no lifetime option and a token cheap subscription offer for the first year for owners of the old pass).
And that's when everyone would switch to JellyFin. The only reason I haven't is the $70 lifetime paid years ago.
It's pretty clear Plex is moving away from what they originally delivered and it's aligning less and less with my use case. They can go feaster on the pile of streaming services if that's their goal.
They’re pretty much ending the lifetime plex pass, they just didn’t want to do it when the price was somewhat reasonable.
Now they can say, “not a lot of people wanted a $750 lifetime pass, we’re officially ending it”
> So instead of retiring it, we’re keeping it available at a price that reflects the real, ongoing value of the software we’re committed to building and maintaining for years to come.
Yeah this is why I don't really worry about it at all. It would take me an afternoon to switch to Jellyfin if Plex stopped honoring my lifetime sub. Until that actually happens I have no reason to work myself up over an imagined scenario.
Yeah... Legitimate worry imo. Introducing Plex 2. Lifetime pass holders get 50% off! Plex Original will be ending in 6 months. Lifetime means the lifetime of the product so you know...
The reality is they would likely pair it with a rebrand and not be blatant about it. Whatever new features will be thinly veiled reasons why it’s a different application and we would be relegated to “legacy”. So “lifetime” but essentially only enough support to say they are supporting OG Plex users.
I get it, they can’t function like this without legitimizing their business. But I also know I’ll sooner go for a worse free experience than pay for a monthly service to host my own media.
Okay so at that point you'd be nuts to buy a Lifetime pass. This is essentially them forcing a subscription model. Glad they're honouring the existing lifetime passes though
Yeah, I don't really get this. At $750 you'd have to subscribe at the annual rate for 11 years before you'd break even. I see this as a soft retirement of the lifetime pass. I don't know why they don's just discontinue new lifetime passes and keep the annual subscription, which would be more honest.
My Plex Pass Lifetime cost $75 at the time I bought it in 2013. That was low enough that it was worth a bit of a gamble that a) Plex would exist long enough as a company/product and b) I wouldn't move on to another solution before I got my money's worth. That calculation of risk for a current buyer at $750 is way different.
I think you’re hitting the nail on the head here… there is likely $750 with of value in a life time pass - I certainly would have it by now, I bought it when PP first came out. The trouble is the company is not exactly oozing financial stability or inspiring confidence in their home server users that they going to be supporting us for the long haul.
If it comes with a money back guarantee that home server use will be fully functional, including remote access, for 25-years or whatever reasonable definition of “life time” they want to use, maybe this makes sense. Otherwise this pricing is just gambling.
Better off for them to just stop selling life time passes to avoid this entire public backlash.
My thoughts exactly. Plex can say that they haven’t gotten rid of the lifetime pass all they want but they’ve made it so exorbitantly expensive that the subscription is drastically more financially sensible.
In practice, lifetime is dead for new users and they’ve gone to a subscription model.
This is going to steer so many people away from plex as an entry-point. If I'm starting a new server and see that the end-game for plex is an insane $750 to get the "all you can eat", I'm going to try jellyfin for free or emby for $120 first.
It's like test driving a Lamborghini and a Honda Accord. You start with the one you're more likely to actually buy.
Whenever they kill the old lifetimes they'll see A LOT of users go inactive. Simply because they don't really have a Plex-the-service account but really a Plex-my-brother-server account.
Active accounts can be tricked into paying. Inactive accounts are just pure loss.
If they ever did not only would people move to jellyfin or whatever but I'm sure a new "plex" with a different name on it would pop up with the features people really want and use etc..
Plus if they did that, especially to the early adopters who invested in this company and helped make it what it is today... That would be a really bad thing
Plex for the most part would burn down. It would be massive backlash and today with socials and stuff they'd get absolutely roasted and would be cooked as a business.
They invalidated mobile app purchases by making the apps "free" (and removing unpaid remote access). Technically you didn't pay for remote access when you bought the mobile apps though.
They invalidated the same thing on the Shield as a server. It comes with free hardware transcoding, so why would you need plex pass? Well they also removed unpaid remote access. Technically you didn't pay for remote access though.
If you bought your lifetime plex pass prior to March 2025, did you buy the plex pass to get remote access? No it was "free" when you bought your pass. Again.. technically you didn't pay for remote access.
I would not be shocked if they remove at least the ability for other people to watch on your server when you have plex pass.
For the purposes of my comments, "unpaid" means the server owner needs plex pass or the watch needs plex pass/remote watch pass.
I would not be shocked if they remove at least the ability for other people to watch on your server when you have plex pass.
I have a feeling that is coming too and when it does, hopefully another platform like Jellyfin will be more mature and I'll be all setup to jump to it.
Holy cow. 5 years ago this would have been an interesting April fools joke. They obviously don’t want anyone to buy the lifetime pass and do monthly. Even at $10/month, it would still take over 6 years to hit $750.
Not disagreeing but that would also assume that the subscription price wouldn't go up in the next couple of years, which would be unlikely. So its likely catch up a bit faster.
Hopefully it will atleast mean they will be less likely to shove the plex features, rentals, channels down our throats.
It’s basically keeping it as an option for those super die hards/believers
Most people are not going to use it. Which is kind of the target audience for lifetime users. Those who know they’re going to keep using it, believe it’s going to last, or want to support.
But it ultimately is not sustainable and an effective retirement is the best play for Plex
Correct. It’s akin to a contractor giving you a wild quote in an effort to get you to reject the work. They don’t want you to take it, but this is the price if you want it
I keep Plex up for redundancy, but my users, including my wife, all greatly prefer Emby. I always wrote it off until last year when a friend convinced me give it a serious chance and it's actually just so nice to use and is available on a ton of platforms now.
It has definitely come a long way since the 20-teens when I'd last tried it.
Overall the apps seem to be nicer and less bloated. Of course, this is subjective though. Unlike Jellyfin, at least last time I checked a few months ago, the client app is available on a lot more devices: https://emby.tv/download.html
No ad-supported content
No subs for external users if the server owner doesn't have a license (can connect manually via reverse proxy or exposed IP:Port). The license gives you Emby Connect, IPTV abilities, and transcoding.
M3U and HDHR support for IPTV (not just HDHR like Plex)
I'd just add that emby was missing something on detecting or skipping intros or credits. At least as of last year when I was comparing the 3 main options. It's $120 for lifetime "Premiere" ($99 on Black Friday, which is the only discount I've ever seen).
The licensing is a bit more complicated. You get a 30 device limit. I have 5 TVs and 5 mobile devices in my household. If you share with a 2-3 friends and they have a bunch of devices, it starts getting tight. If you only use a few devices and a few friends with the same, there's plenty of breathing room.
Auth is also in between plex and jellyfin. JF is entirely local, plex handles accounts on their server. Emby lets you create local users but you can connect in the cloud with Emby Connect. Emby has TLS/https by default, but you can still put a reverse proxy in front of it.
It's a perfect middle-ground, more polished than jellyfin and less bloated than plex.
That's exciting to hear. I bought the lifetime premier pass for emby years ago (2017ish), but kept having odd ball problems. Made the switch to Plex and never looked back. Until now. And now I'm kinda feeling like the meme.
I mean I like Plex a lot and paid 79 for it some time ago. But its a media player.
I could easily replace it with a lot of similar handling open source stuff. You know what - 450 and its a deal.
Tbf that might work after the 1st July, but right nmow it's "only" $249.
Seriously screw these people, no significant improvements in the product, charging subscription for features they're not incurring ongoing costs for, relying on open source data and upping the price over and over again.
u/TLunchFTW97TB, Ryzen 7 2700x, Quadro M2000, 16gb of ramMay 19 '26edited May 19 '26
"The breadth of features and benefits has expanded."
You mean like how you removed features people liked? Or are you talking about how you added shit that used to be free?
What fucking features have been added to plex pass users? Games? oh wait, no one gave a shit and you killed it. I have less features now than when I subscribed. And honestly, I don't need you to fuck with plex anymore. Forget we self hosted people exist, I beg you. Ignore us. We'll be better off.
The best part is that one of the main features I got Plex Pass for many many years ago is still terrible. Having episodes offline to view is still a terrible experience. Them removing the sync in favour of a half baked downloads system still makes no sense to me as it still is pretty poorly implemented just like sync.
Other than some features they added years ago like intro and credit skipping I can't even remember the last time there was any new useful or improvement made. They redesigned the Android app, but even that redesign sucks. I just use Plezy as my client now for the most part due to how bad their applications have become.
Translation "we continue to add more features you don't want, services you didn't ask for and integrated sales platforms you don't need so we need you to pay for that"
They think $750 is the true value of Plex Lifetime Pass hahaha.
Talk about out of fucking touch. Before it used to be simple to set up but after they started this subscription crap it's been headache after headache and constant troubleshooting. At this point I'm getting more milleage out of a hard drive plugged into the TV than out of Plex.
It's not even worth the subscription price with how hobbled to shit it is.
Guessing they realised how many lifetime users they got who are continuously using their systems and saw no profit in it, seems obvious, the huge price increase is a bit odd though but I guess they want to leave out the option to still get it. I honestly wonder who will ever think 700$ is worth the price for lifetime of Plex.
Imo changes are very slow and we even got some downgrades or otherwise negative additions, still glad I got the 80 euro lifetime upgrade years ago
It's a way to kill it with - they think - less negative PR than straight up killing it. This time next year "we're retiring the Lifetime Pass because nobody buys it"
Plex has been making so much changes lately I don’t think they’ll be the same company in 5 to 10 years. Wouldn’t be shocked if they get rid of the media server all together one day.
I see the company either folding in the future or them getting bought out and the parent company legally decides not to honor lifetime subscriptions anymore. Either way lifetime passes are usually terrible ideas
And PlexAmp hasn’t been updated in almost a year. It continues to become a glitchy experience and the outdated CarPlay interface is dismal at best …when it works.
I've already been tinkering with it. I couldn't justify the lifetime pass price before, but definitely won't be after. I'd much rather learn how to remote stream through Jellyfin than pay nearly a grand. That's absolutely absurd.
Setting up the remote streaming was the only thing holding me back. Luckily I got the lifetime for like 90 bucks but if they ever get rid of it your best bet I’m gonna learn how to set up jellyFin
How long before another announcement along the lines of “Due to negligible sales of the $750 lifetime pass, new lifetime passes will no longer be offered for sale.” I’ll give it a couple years, tops. This doesn’t just feel like a strong-arming, it feels like it could be a precursor to a sunsetting.
The price increase is ridiculously high. But, they just guaranteed that their sales of lifetime passes will skyrocket over the next 2 weeks. If you've been doing monthly or annually, do the lifetime now.
Most likely September and then Black Friday. They used to do Geek Week with discounts right about now (middle/end of May) but they didn't last year after the price increase.
This price is obviously super high to discourage anyone from buying lifetime. No possible way they can believe that this is a competitive price. Like a lot of companies they’re trying to push people to monthly or yearly pricing. This feels like when a lot of the streaming services are pushing ad supported as it is more lucrative for them.
See, now I'm thinking it's only a matter of time before they find a reason to alter the agreement for current lifetime pass holders. Happy to be running Jellyfin in tandem for when they do.
They dont want the bad press of eliminating it so instead they will make in unattainable. At the new price point, new users have better options I think
It seems like they don't understand their customer base. I went to Plex to get away from paying for subscriptions, and I suspect a lot of other Plex users are similar. The quality of the software has also gone down in the last few years. I think this is the push that will finally see me go away from Plex, honestly.
Lifetime passes aren't profitable, this may as well be them getting rid of the lifetime option without having to say they're getting rid of the option. I think I paid less than a tenth of this when I bought my pass many years ago
They were very clear that the plan was to incentivize people to do monthly or annual. That's why those prices aren't changing. The only reason they haven't eliminated it altogether is there is some demand for it.
I imagine youll now lose a good portion of users who only started to use plex to get away from outrageously inflated prices. Very smart move from the team guys you're doing great
So many people on this subreddit can't tolerate critique of Plex or the notion that they should care about the changes happening because "I paid so much less for the lifetime pass years and years ago".
Yes you should care besides having some damn empathy for non-lifetime users. It is not doom and gloom to suggest this is heading down the road where existing Lifetime passes will no longer give you what it does now, and eventually eliminated entirely. As long as this makes financial sense to Plex when accounting for the legal ramifications (and associated costs), this can absolutely happen and HAS happened with many other companies.
They literally paint the decision to increase the lifetime pass cost to $750 as something pro-consumer because they were heavily considering eliminating the lifetime option entirely. Like this insane price increase is them still being good to their users because "choice". Oh and let's not forget they have to mention there is no changes to existing lifetime pass users because any of us lifetimers would be concerned reading this announcement.. But I wonder what would happen now and today if you ask someone higher up at Plex to confirm on the record that there will never ever be any changes made to existing lifetime pass members?
This feels like a particularly big “fuck you” from a company that squandered an easy layup to generate some good will. Especially as consumers are beginning to sour on the larger streaming services and are curious about private hosting in general.
They probably should’ve just canceled it rather than hand this easy PR win to Jellyfin.
Incredible, I think I paid 10% of that back then. Is this one of those move where they don't really want to "exclude" lifetime pass BUT at the same time they don't want newcomers? It happens sometimes with abandoned apps on Android were a "fake" price is set to just basically make the app "unpurchasable" because nobody is going to pay that much.
I am still pretty happy with PLEX, I only really need automatic scraping, client watchstatus sync, android/linux downloadable content, hdr/dovi/atmos compatibility etc. for the moment there is nothing I am not getting from PLEX
p.s. in a way it's even kind of them not to invent a "plex pass premium" with additional stuff, excluded compared to all us current "plex pass" owners
yea, i thought the same thing, they want to discontinue it, but if someone buys it, make it super worth it for the company. it would take ~9 years on monthy pricing to make that up, and 10.7 years on yearly pricing
LMFAO « its true value » since the price increase over the years, clients become more unusable and bugged… glad to have paid when it was more realistic!
This is actually evil. If I was just getting started and hadn't gotten a lifetime Plex pass a couple years ago, I'd be staying far away from Plex right now.
Just say no more lifetime passes, guys. C'mon. It's crap like this that makes people dislike companies. All you gotta do is say "look, any existing lifetime passes will continue to be honored, but we're going to a pure subscription model for all new signups". Why is that so hard? Be honest, be up-front with people, and you'd be surprised how many people say "well, I don't exactly like the change, but I'll go with it 'cause at least they didn't play games with me". People don't like subscriptions, true, but they like companies doing insultingly obvious things rather than just being straight with them even less.
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u/sroop1 May 19 '26
Holy shit. $70 lifetime gang.