The Walt Disney Company said yesterday that it is rolling out a new “perks” program for subscribers of its Disney Plus streaming service. The program features 11 benefits that Disney Plus users can take advantage of, so long as they remain a paying subscriber.
But it’s likely that Disney isn’t offering these benefits out of the goodness of their little mouse heart. Instead, the perks are likely an effort to reduce one of the biggest threats that Disney Plus and all other streaming services face: “churn.” That’s the industry term for when subscribers cancel a service during a specific period.
What did Disney announce?
The Walt Disney Company launched the new perks program yesterday, which is now available to all Disney Plus subscribers in the United States. Disney says the new perks program will be rolling out to other geographic regions later this year.
Upon its launch, the program features 11 perks that subscribers can take advantage of. However, it remains to be seen how compelling the perks will be to the average subscriber, as they appear to be a mixed bag of random free trials, discounts, and contests.
For example, two of the 11 “perks” are for contests. One, if you win, will let you attend the Freakier Friday world premiere in August, while the other gives you a chance to win a free Disney cruise.
In other words, these perks won’t be available to every Disney Plus subscriber—merely the chance to win them will be.
The perks are also full of free trials or limited memberships, including a three-month free trial of Clear+, the airport security membership program; a two-month Super Duolingo free trial; and a six-month free DashPass membership—but only if you’ve never been a DashPass subscriber before.
Random discounts are also available, including 20% off at adidas.com, and 15% off at Funko.com and Loungefly.com. Subscribers can also get lower rates at select Disney resorts.
And then there are digital perks, including free emoji, early access to the digital pin collectable experience, Disney Pinnacle; and free in-game tokens for the Monopoly Go! and Star Wars TIE Fighter games.
The perks are available to all Disney Plus subscribers in the United States, and there is no extra charge for accessing them.
An effort to reduce churn
Though Disney did not specifically state that its new “always-on” perks program was an effort to reduce churn, that’s likely what it is designed for.
“Churn” is the industry term that describes subscribers who cancel their streaming subscriptions, often when they’ve watched all the content they want to see, such as a specific movie or series. Instead of continuing to be an active subscriber to the service, they will cancel it to save money and then only resubscribe when the service has new content they want to watch.
Churn stops Disney and other streaming services from receiving monthly recurring revenue from individuals. Instead of subscribing for the whole year, a subscriber who churns may cancel the service in February and not resubscribe until September, when new content of interest to them becomes available.
This cycle of canceling and resubscribing is very familiar to streaming customers who juggle a lot of services and aim to keep their monthly entertainment costs down. In fact, you might say that easy cancellation was the original “perk” of the streaming revolution—offering a contrast to the long-term contracts that were so prevalent during the traditional cable TV era.
Disney is apparently hoping that by adding “always-on” perks, it will reduce subscriber churn, as when the subscription stops, so do the additional perks. But that carrot-style approach will only work if the subscribers find value in the perks to begin with.
Not the first time Disney Plus has offered ‘perks’
Disney announced its new perks program as an “always-on” one. It went with this branding because this isn’t the first time that Disney has offered perks to Disney Plus subscribers. In the past, it has offered time-limited perks, like reduced fares on select Disney Cruise products.
But given that most of the “always-on” perks are still limited—such as the free trials and contests—it’s hard to imagine that most Disney Plus subscribers who are churners will stick around just for the perks, unless they do a lot of shopping at Funko and Addidas and really want those 15% and 20% discounts.
However, it should be noted that Disney says “new Perks will drop regularly.” The company is also rolling out perks to Hulu subscribers starting in June, which include more contests and nondescript “exclusive perks” from LG, Microsoft, and Pure Green.
Streaming is more important than ever to Disney
Disney Plus is a significant focus for the Walt Disney Company, as the service is a potentially massive source of recurring income. Therefore, it’s no wonder that Disney wants to make it as appealing as possible to retain subscribers and reduce churn.
Recently, signs point to Disney being aware of a possible slowdown in Disney Plus growth. When it reported results for its second-quarter fiscal 2025 in March, Disney said it had 126 million Disney Plus subscribers during the period, up by 1.4 million from the quarter before.
However, the company gave a lukewarm forecast for Disney Plus in the current Q3. Disney said it expects to see only a “modest increase in Disney+ subscribers” compared to the service’s Q2 fiscal 2025 numbers.
