Disney+ Now Wants You to Pay to Share Your Account
Well, it’s official: Disney is now asking you to pay to share your Disney+ account with other people. What started as a random announcement during an interview in April has now become company policy and the company expects you to pay.
The news broke Wednesday when Disney laid out new rules for what it calls “paid sharing” in a newsletter to subscribers. Like Netflix before it, Disney now considers a Disney+ subscription exclusive to the subscriber’s household. Anyone who lives in this home can access the account on their devices at no additional cost. However, in order for someone outside of this family to access the account, they will have to pay.
Disney’s approach is to offer users an add-on called “Extra Member.” For $6.99 per month for Disney+ Basic or $9.99 for Disney+ Premium, you can add another user to your account. That’s quite expensive considering Disney+ prices are also rising : after October 17, Basic will cost $9.99 and Premium will cost $15.99 per month or $139.99 per year.
This Additional Member will only be able to stream on one device at a time and is the only approved user who has access to your account outside of your household: You cannot add additional Additional Member accounts.
If you’re wondering about alternatives to the additional member option, Disney has the answer: sign up for your account. In fact, this is their policy: “As an alternative to an additional member, people outside of your household can sign up for their own subscription to watch Disney+.” Disney says it’s rolling out a feature to migrate user profiles to new accounts so you can sign up for your own Disney+ account and keep your browsing history and settings consistent. Netflix offers the same service .
However, you probably won’t have to pay for this add-on to watch Disney+ on someone else’s dime. Disney doesn’t fully explain how watching outside your home works, but it does confirm what I thought would be true: If you log into your account on your TV and get an error message like “This TV isn’t working.” part of the family for this account”, there is a new option to set yourself as “I AM OUT OF HOME”. When you select this option, the account owner will receive an OTP to their email, so if you are close enough to the owner, you can contact them to receive the code.
Disney doesn’t explain how watching on other devices outside of your home works, but I’m guessing that as long as those devices connect to your main home occasionally (maybe once a month), you’ll be able to stream without issue. At least that’s how it works for Netflix .
You can learn more about these potential workarounds from our article here .