How much should Apple’s new streaming service, Apple TV+, cost?

Many of us have woken up to the reality that all of the “reasonably priced” subscription services we pay for add up to a lot of cash money all together. 

So when Apple debuted its Apple TV+ subscription service on Monday, we wondered: who among us would be willing to give rich AF Apple even more money for yet another streaming service?

During Apple’s event on Monday, in which the company touted its services as opposed to its hardware, Apple announced the debut of its new pay TV subscription service: TV+. Stars including Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Anniston, Steven Spielberg, and even Oprah teased the television series and films that they were working on specifically to air on Apple TV+.

Apple trotted out a bunch of celebs to celebrate the occasion, but that did not sufficiently distract viewers from the reality that the Apple TV+ announcement left us with a ton of questions. 

First, it gave just one teaser trailer for all of the content — providing no meaningful look at what these shows will actually be. Most glaringly, it neglected to tell us how much TV+ will actually cost. What we know now, according to Apple’s press release, is that “pricing and availability for the Apple TV+ video subscription service will be announced later this fall.”

Basically, Apple announced a service — and expected us all to be stoked about it — with a slim description of the product, and zero information about the price.

But this is Apple we’re talking about, and Oprah and Reese are big enough draws on their own to get us interested in TV+. So the team at Mashable wondered: given what we currently know about TV+, how much would we be willing to pay for it? And does that number, and that potential willingness, change depending on how many other streaming platforms you already subscribe to?

We decided to ask the content lovers at Mashable and Mashable’s parent companies how they felt about Apple TV+. This isn’t meant to be scientific, of course. Think of this survey as a first reaction gut check to how Apple’s big Hollywood play might land with an already passionate user-base. 

“I don’t hate the idea and I guess this was kind of inevitable,” Dylan Hass, a commerce fellow at Mashable, said. “I super don’t want to pay for another TV subscription but if the exclusive shows are good… I’m not sure I can be stopped.”

Here’s what we found.

Over half of the Mashable employees surveyed would pay between $9.99 and $12.99; it seems that ~11ish could be the magic number. That answer tracks with a recent Hollywood Reporter survey that found that the ideal price range for an ad-free streaming service is between $10 and $16. 

Those numbers are also comparable to other streaming services: both Amazon Prime and Netflix HD subscriptions cost $12.99 per month, and ad-free Hulu costs $11.99. Of course, on Amazon, Netflix, and Hulu, you can watch platform originals in addition to other content. 

What’s more, you can still access most of that competing content with the the Apple TV app, especially with its Channels section, also announced Monday. But at this point, considering we don’t know whether TV+ will also contain non-Apple-produced content, it seems that Apple apparently wants us to pony up more cash for just ~its~ originals.

“It’s just all unproven, original content,” tech reporter Matt Binder responded. “Where’s the beloved series? Where’s a single established franchise?”

Apple emphasized its “high quality” content, and with figures like JJ Abrams and Steven Spielberg signed on, it’s at least lining up the squad to make that happen (whether Tim Cook’s interference will allow them to deliver is another question). But how much that content is worth is a question we can only ask in context: given how much most of us already pay for, or at least have access to through shared passwords, how willing are we to pay for yet another subscription service?

According to Mashable’s employees, not very willing. We here at Mashable love our content, and spend about $43 on average for streaming services, including cable. That’s higher than the national average of how much US households pay for streaming services, which is about $17, according to a Deloitte survey (although that did not include cable). Considering how much cash we’re already giving Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, and HBO, Mashable employees were mostly not likely to sign up for TV+.

There was one caveat: as prior surveys have shown, willingness to pay for a subscription service often comes down to the actual content. Three quarters of the surveyed Mashable employees said they were not sure whether they have room for another streaming service in their lives — but the answer to that question would depend on how how good the shows are.

“I’m not sure how much more TV people can actually fit into their lives, not to mention how much more they can afford it,” Jessica Joho, a Mashable staff writer said. “To make it, Apple will need to put out content that’s super culturally sticky — like Handmaid’s Tale or Game of Thrones levels.”

That’s a high bar that even HBO has been struggling to reach, with the end of Game of Thrones imminent.  

At this point, there are too many unknowns to say whether this is a good deal that’s got the folks at Mashable, and potentially others, ready to join in on the fun. But one thing’s for sure: the subscription fatigue is already very, very real. 

Or, as Angie Han, Mashable’s deputy entertainment editor put it: “I hope it fails just so I don’t have to subscribe to another freaking streaming service.”