Crunchyroll is increasing prices

Crunchyroll is raising prices again.

In an announcement on Monday, the anime streaming service said U.S. subscribers will see price hikes across all tiers starting with their next billing cycle after March 4, 2026. The Fan plan jumps from $7.99 to $9.99 a month, Mega Fan goes from $11.99 to $13.99, and Ultimate Fan rises from $15.99 to $17.99.

In the blog post, the company says this is the first price bump for the Fan tier since 2019 and that it’s meant to support continued investment in anime content, features, and member perks.

On paper, Crunchyroll is offering more. New perks include offline downloads on the Fan tier, expanded device support, profile controls, and deeper integration with its Game Vault and digital manga service. The company also points to its massive library of more than 50,000 episodes as justification for the higher cost.

Context matters here, though. Just weeks earlier, Crunchyroll quietly announced it was ending its free, ad-supported streaming plan entirely, officially closing the door on no-cost anime viewing starting Jan. 1, 2026. That move followed years of slowly stripping down what the free tier offered, making the paywall feel sort of inevitable at some point.

Put together, the changes point to a broader shift in how Crunchyroll is positioning itself. Crunchyroll is betting that expanded features, a growing content library, and additional perks will be enough to justify the higher cost as the platform moves further into 2026.