MoviePass has capped its plan for new subscribers at 4 movies a month - and its CEO doesn't know if the old plan will return
- According to The Hollywood Reporter, MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe said he didn't know if the company's movie-a-day subscription plan would ever return.
- Currently, MoviePass only offers new customers a three-month bundle with iHeartRadio for $29.85 a month, which includes four movies in theaters (per month) and a free trial of iHeartRadio All Access.
- MoviePass' subscriber base drastically increased after the company lowered the price to $9.95 a month for a movie-a-day plan, but the company's ability to stay in business has been called into question recently.
When MoviePass lowered its price in August to $9.95 a month to see one movie per day in theaters, it seemed too good to be true. Now, that plan is no longer available for new subscribers, and the company's CEO doesn't know if it will ever return.
MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe told The Hollywood Reporter, "I don't know," when asked whether the service will ever go back to the movie-a-day model.
The MoviePass offer available to new subscribers since April 13 has been a three-month bundle with iHeartRadio that includes four movies a month in theaters, along with a three-month trial of iHeartRadio All Access. That costs $29.85 for the three months, and will continue to be billed at that rate every quarter.
MoviePass has characterized this as a temporary promotion, but Lowe's response to THR suggests that it's the iHeartRadio part that might be temporary, not the limit of four movies a month.
This is not the first change for the subscription plan, as MoviePass continues to try and increase its subscriber base. In March, MoviePass offered a temporary annual plan for new subscribers that worked out to $7.50 a month for the first year. But in this instance, MoviePass users could still see a movie a day.
A potential change in strategy might be because of MoviePass' financial situation. In February, MoviePass hit 2 million subscribers, but the company recently disclosed it was losing money on every subscriber. And earlier this month, the auditor for MoviePass' owner, Helios & Matheson, raised concerns about the company's ability to stay in business for the next year.