Headline & intro
Crunchyroll just delivered a masterclass in how to turn a once‑beloved niche platform into a textbook case of consolidation power. Weeks after shutting down its free tier, the Sony‑owned anime streamer is raising subscription prices across the board. For anime fans who followed Crunchyroll from scrappy upstart to near‑monopoly, this moment matters far beyond a few extra dollars a month. In this piece, we’ll look at what actually changed, why Sony is doing it, how this reshapes the global anime market, and what it signals for the future of streaming — especially for European viewers.
The news in brief
According to Ars Technica, Crunchyroll has increased monthly prices for all its remaining subscription tiers, only weeks after completely discontinuing its free, ad‑supported option on 31 December 2025.
The Fan plan reportedly rises from $8 to $10 per month. The Mega tier, which supports streaming on more devices at once, goes from $12 to $14. The top Ultra tier increases from $16 to $18 and includes access to Crunchyroll’s manga app. New subscribers pay the new prices immediately, while existing users will see the changes from 4 March 2026.
Ars Technica notes that this follows Sony’s broader restructuring of its anime assets: Funimation was folded into Crunchyroll and shut down in 2024, with customers losing previously purchased digital libraries. Crunchyroll had already reduced free content in 2022 before fully killing the free tier.
Sony’s anime unit is now profitable, and external analysts cited by Ars Technica estimate margins could more than double by 2027.
Why this matters
This isn’t just another price rise; it’s what happens when a niche passion market becomes a highly profitable, highly concentrated business.
Winners first. Sony and rights holders gain a lot here. With Crunchyroll and Netflix reportedly controlling over 80 percent of the non‑Japanese anime streaming market, the pricing power is obvious. Sony can squeeze more revenue from an audience that has limited alternatives, especially for simulcasts and catalogue depth. For anime studios and production committees, a healthier Crunchyroll balance sheet can mean more licensing money and global reach — if that value is actually shared downstream.
The losers are clear. Viewers who once used Crunchyroll as a legal, low‑friction alternative to piracy are now being pushed up a pricing ladder with no free rung left. The shutdown of Funimation and loss of “forever” digital purchases sent a strong message: in this ecosystem, user ownership is negotiable, but recurring revenue is not. Combine that with a 20 percent bump on the entry tier and you’re asking loyal fans to pay more for a service that’s also becoming less optional.
It also raises the bar for competitors. New challengers in anime streaming must now either:
- Spend heavily on exclusive rights to differentiate from Crunchyroll and Netflix, or
- Go ultra‑niche (specific genres, indie titles) with far smaller audiences.
Either way, entry costs rise — which is exactly what an incumbent with scale wants.
In the short term, most subscribers will grumble and stay, especially those deep into ongoing series. The real effect is more subtle: it normalises the idea that specialised streaming services can behave like utility providers once they reach quasi‑monopoly status.
The bigger picture
Crunchyroll’s move fits neatly into three overlapping industry trends.
1. Streaming’s long pivot from growth to profitability.
The era of cheap, expansion‑at‑all‑costs streaming is over. Netflix, Disney+, Spotify and others have all raised prices in the last few years while adding or tightening restrictions (from password‑sharing rules to ad tiers). Investors now reward predictable cash flow, not just subscriber graphs. Crunchyroll is simply applying that same playbook to anime.
2. Consolidation as a business model, not a phase.
Sony didn’t just buy Crunchyroll; it stitched together Funimation, production companies like Aniplex, and now, as Ars Technica notes, even more studio acquisitions (such as Egg Firm) under a vertically integrated anime empire. Owning the pipeline from production to global distribution allows Sony to capture more of the value chain — but it also reduces the diversity of gatekeepers deciding what gets funded and how it reaches audiences.
We’ve seen similar arcs before: music streaming narrowing around a few giants, or Western video streaming coalescing into a small club of mega‑platforms after years of experimentation. Anime is following that script, only faster.
3. The slow erosion of digital ownership.
Funimation’s vanished libraries are the cautionary tale nobody should ignore. Users bought titles marketed as long‑term access, only to see them disappear in a corporate merger. It underlines a hard truth: in the current streaming economy, “buy” often means “lease, until strategy changes.” Crunchyroll’s new manga app and extra features are marketed as added value, but they also deepen lock‑in to one ecosystem.
All this suggests where the industry is heading: fewer platforms, higher prices, more bundles, and a stronger push to extract every possible euro or dollar from niche fandoms that have proven their willingness to pay.
The European / regional angle
For European users, Crunchyroll’s price rise lands differently than in the US or Japan.
First, income levels and price sensitivity vary widely across the continent. A €2 monthly increase is trivial in some markets but noticeable in others, especially where wages lag and currency conversion pushes prices even higher. In Central and Eastern Europe, anime fans often juggle multiple subscriptions already (generalist streamers plus gaming or music). Crunchyroll risks nudging some of them back towards piracy or unofficial fan subs.
Second, Europe sits at the intersection of consumer protection and digital markets regulation. The EU’s consumer rules around misleading marketing and unfair contract terms look increasingly relevant when services erase purchased digital libraries or radically change tiers soon after mergers. While the Digital Markets Act mostly targets gatekeeper platforms, the wider policy mood in Brussels is shifting: subscription traps, dark patterns, and one‑sided terms are on regulators’ radar.
Third, rights fragmentation and region‑locking remain sore points. Despite higher prices, European catalogues are still often thinner or more delayed than US versions due to licensing deals struck years ago. Paying more for less — or later — content is a hard sell. This creates an opening for regional players, from France’s anime distributors to small local VOD platforms, to position themselves as more transparent and legally stable alternatives, even if they can’t match Crunchyroll’s library breadth.
Finally, anime has become a key part of youth culture across Europe. Schools, conventions, and local streaming startups from Berlin to Barcelona treat it as a growth engine. When a single foreign‑owned platform becomes the near‑default gateway to that culture, questions of cultural sovereignty and bargaining power inevitably follow.
Looking ahead
Over the next 12–24 months, expect Crunchyroll’s current strategy to continue along three lines.
1. More incremental price moves and soft upselling.
Once customers absorb this increase, the next lever is likely regional fine‑tuning (different price points by country) and more aggressive nudging toward higher tiers, especially those bundling manga and multi‑device access. Don’t be surprised if annual plans and partner bundles (with PlayStation, for example) are emphasised to lock users in longer.
2. Deeper vertical integration.
Sony will keep buying or partnering with production studios and rights holders to secure exclusive content and reduce licensing costs. That doesn’t have to be bad for fans — it could mean faster global releases or better funding for risky projects — but it concentrates creative risk in fewer corporate hands.
3. Growing regulatory and reputational risk.
If more users in Europe and elsewhere feel trapped by rising prices and shrinking options, political pressure will follow. National consumer agencies could investigate issues like lost digital libraries, while EU‑level debates around digital content ownership may intensify. Even without immediate fines, this can constrain how aggressively Sony pushes future changes.
For users, the key questions are practical:
- Which services are truly essential, and which can be rotated month‑to‑month?
- Is it worth diversifying across platforms (including legal local alternatives), even if that means missing some exclusives?
- How much are you willing to pay to keep anime accessible, legal and conveniently available?
Those choices, aggregated across millions of subscribers, will determine how much further platforms like Crunchyroll can stretch their pricing power.
The bottom line
Crunchyroll’s latest price hike is not an isolated annoyance; it’s the logical outcome of Sony’s successful bid to dominate global anime streaming. The company is proving that niche fandoms can be turned into high‑margin businesses once competition is thinned out. That may fund more anime in the long run, but it also means higher prices, weaker ownership rights and fewer real alternatives. The uncomfortable question for fans is simple: at what point does supporting the industry start to feel like paying a monopoly tax?
