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yesterday

HBO Max Will Require Fee for Shared Accounts Starting September

It plans fixed, non-skippable prompts compelling unauthorized viewers to pay $7.99 monthly or sign up independently, with tougher enforcement rules arriving in the fourth quarter.

HBO is following in the footsteps of Netflix and Disney in cracking down on password sharing.
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The party's over for HBO Max password-sharers.
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Overview

  • Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming chief JB Perrette announced during the Q2 earnings call that soft, dismissable password-sharing messages will be replaced by mandatory prompts beginning in September.
  • Subscribers will have to pay a $7.99 per month extra-member fee for anyone using the account outside the owner’s household or ask that person to create their own subscription.
  • Following months of internal testing, HBO Max will analyze account activity, IP addresses and device IDs to distinguish between household members and unauthorized users.
  • Messaging will become progressively stricter in Q4, requiring users to take action or risk interruption of their service if they ignore or close the notices.
  • The company projects that converting shared viewers into paying subscribers will boost total sign-ups and average revenue per user by late 2025 and into 2026, mirroring Netflix’s and Disney+’s successes.