When the Price Jumps for No Reason, Go Monthly
Here’s the rule I’m writing down so I don’t forget it:
When a service raises its price a lot, for no good reason, don’t lock in. Go monthly, and start looking for the way out.
The usual instinct goes the other way. The price is going up, so buy the lifetime plan now, or the three-year plan, and save money. I’ve done exactly that. Today it bit me.
Why the price hike is the warning
A big price increase with no new feature behind it and no obvious cost going up usually isn’t just about price. It means the company has decided to get more money out of the people who are already there. Higher prices are only the first part. Next the product gets worse: more ads, more upsells, more of your screen used for what they want you to watch.
If you just paid for years up front, you’ve paid for the product as it was. What you actually get is whatever it turns into.
What happened with Plex
I run Plex on a seedbox. The files are mine, the server is mine, and I bought a lifetime Plex Pass because I trusted them. Plex was the one piece of my setup that felt like it was on my side.
Then the price started climbing. In April 2025, lifetime went from $119.99 to $249.99, the first increase in a decade, and streaming your own media away from home started requiring a paid pass (TechCrunch; PCWorld). This year it went up again. A new lifetime pass is now $749.99 (Plex).
I bought in before all that and felt smart about it.
This afternoon I sat down to watch the next episode of Brockmire. It was at the top of the Plex home screen, big banner. I hit play, and Plex tried to show me an ad. An ad, before a show I already have in my own library.
It turns out Plex also runs its own free streaming service paid for by ads, and the redesigned app (TechCrunch) mixes it in with your library. The banner wasn’t my copy. It was theirs, with ads, looking exactly like mine. I only figured it out by opening the file info on the copy in my own library. That version showed the path on my server. The one I’d clicked first didn’t have one.
So there it is: price up, product worse, more ads. It happened in that order, and I’d already paid for a lifetime of it.
The fix, for anyone else running into it
Go to app.plex.tv → Settings → Online Media Sources. Mine said “Disabled for Managed Accounts” on almost everything, which sounds like “off.” It isn’t. That only covers the extra profiles under your account. Click Edit on each one and pick plain Disabled, then restart your TV box so the app reloads. There’s no save button. Each change is supposed to stick as soon as you pick it.
“Supposed to,” because the page barely works. At least three of my choices didn’t take. I’d pick Disabled, and when I looked again it had gone back, so I had to go in and pick it again. The dropdowns are backwards, too. Normally the option under your mouse lights up. Here, hovering over Disabled lit up the other two options instead. Check every row after you’ve changed it.
I don’t know that it’s on purpose. But when the one page that turns the ads off is this broken, it feels like neglect that works in their favor.
The new rule, in practice
- Don’t lock in. No lifetime or multi-year plans to save a few bucks, especially right after a big unexplained price jump. That’s when the warning is loudest.
- Go monthly. It costs a little more and keeps me free to walk away the moment the product turns on me.
- Find the exit ramp right away. Not once I’m fed up. As soon as the warning shows up.
The exit ramp for Plex
How I watch is simple. My library lives on a seedbox, I mostly watch at home on an Apple TV, and every once in a while I watch on a Roku or Fire TV stick while traveling.
The obvious replacement is Jellyfin. It’s free and open source, and the project says it has “no tracking, phone-home, or central servers collecting your data.” There’s no company account, so no company to change the deal on me. It has apps for Apple TV, Roku and Fire TV, and my seedbox host already offers it as a one-click install pointed at the same folders Plex uses. Emby is the other option, but it’s closed source and its premium tier is sold as a $119 lifetime plan. See above.
| Now (Plex) | With Jellyfin | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Already paid (lifetime) | Free |
| Apple TV at home | Plex app | Swiftfin (free), or Infuse, which also plays Plex and Jellyfin libraries |
| Roku / Fire TV on the road | Plex app, which needs the paid pass for streaming away from home | Jellyfin apps, log in with my server’s address |
| Ads and promos | Plex’s own streaming catalog, until you dig up the setting | None |
| Depends on a company account | Yes, plex.tv (which had a data breach in 2025) | No |
| Setup | Done | One-click install, then rebuild the libraries |
I don’t have to switch all at once. Both can run side by side on the same files. If Jellyfin works out, Plex just quietly stops getting opened.
Added to my long list of todos
- Go through my other subscriptions. Anything on a long-term plan moves to monthly when it renews. Anything that’s had a big unexplained price jump gets an exit ramp picked out now.
- Install Jellyfin on the seedbox next to Plex (check my plan includes it first). Point it at the same TV and movie folders.
- Try Swiftfin on the Apple TV. If it’s rough, try Infuse.
- Make sure Jellyfin plays my files directly without converting them on the fly. My seedbox host frowns on heavy converting.
- Test it from a hotel on the Roku or Fire stick before I actually need it.
- Figure out how to carry over what I’ve already watched, and whether the scripts that add my YouTube downloads to Plex need changing.
Research and drafting assistance for this piece, including source verification, was provided by Claude (Anthropic). Prices and facts are cited to the sources linked inline; the opinions are my own.