Home security products-maker Ring will increase the monthly and annual subscription price of its cheapest plan. Starting March 11, Ring Protect Basic will cost users $4.99/mo (or $49.99/year) instead of $3.99/mo (or $39.99/year), according to a support document seen by The Verge.
The increased price will burn an extra hole of $10 for the users who pay annually. However, the Amazon-owned company said you"ll be charged the current fee "for that renewal term" if your plan renewal happens before March 11. The price hike doesn"t make any changes to the renewal date, it added.
Ring Basic Protect enables video recording for one Ring doorbell or home camera and offers digital features such as notifications and in-app arming/disarming. You can download up to 50 videos at once and share video recordings from your Ring device. The increased price doesn"t bring any new features to the table.
Meanwhile, the Plus subscription, which costs $100/year (or $10/mo), enables video recording on all Ring doorbells and home cameras present at a single location. So, those extra $50 might seem heavy on the pocket if you add a second device. But it won"t cost anything extra if you plan to buy more Ring devices.
If you want, you can use your device without a Ring Protect plan. But that will only leave you with the ability to watch live streams and get motion alerts from the camera.
Ring"s price bump comes several months after Google increased the prices of its Nest Aware and Nest Aware Plus monthly plans. This adds to the ongoing trend where subscription services are resorting to price hikes to make up for unmet financial targets.
To name a few, popular streaming services, including Netflix, Peacock, Prime Video, Hulu, and Disney Plus, have increased their prices in recent months, launched ad-supported tiers, or started crackdowns on password sharing.