Netflix has begun notifying legacy subscribers to its cheapest ad-free plan, now priced at $11.99 a month, that they need to switch their service tier or lose access to the streaming service.

“Your last day to watch Netflix is July 13th. Choose a new plan to keep watching,” reads Netflix’s message to one Reddit user (which was first spotted by The Verge). “Your Basic plan has been discontinued, but you can easily switch to a new one. Plans start at just $5.99 with upgraded features.”

Can't finish Netflix subscription from r/mildlyinfuriating

The news follows a January announcement in Netflix's first-quarter shareholders letter that the service would soon remove the Basic ad-free plan “starting with Canada and the UK in Q2," before "taking it from there.”

When asked for comment, Netflix directed Next TV back to that statement.

Netflix began phasing out its "Basic" plan last year, following the November 2022 launch of the $6.99 Basic with ads tier. It stopped marketing the Basic no-ads tiers to new subscribers, while upping the price for legacy customers from $9.99 a month to $11.00.

In February, Next TV reported that Netflix was no longer letting legacy users of ad-free Basic pay for the service via the Apple Store. 

Now, users need to either switch to the cheaper $6.99 tier, which also supports one user at a time and HD viewing, but requires the viewing of commercials. They can also upgrade to the $15.49-a-month "Standard" plan (which supports two simultaneous users) or the $22.99-a-month "Premium" tier, which allows four users at once and supports 4K. 

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Netflix beat its earnings-per-share forecasts and posted much better than expected subscriber numbers in the second quarter, but turned in another quarter of negative cash flow as it continues to ramp up its international operations and spend heavily on new programming.

Netflix reported earnings of about 6 cents a share for Q2, better than the consensus of analysts, who were expecting about 4 cents per share (or 30 to 31 cents a share before the seven-for-one stock split that took effect July 15). Management had forecast around 26 cents prior to the stock split.

Overall, paid members grew to 42.51 million in the U.S. and hit 66.61 million worldwide.

Revenue for the quarter totaled $1.6 billion, higher than the $1.47 billion management had predicted but less than the $1.65 billion analysts had been forecasting.

Netflix management had predicted it would gain about 2.5 million net additional subs in Q2 and handily beat that forecast with 3.55 million net additional subscribers.

The subscriber growth result was notable because the second quarter is typically a slow one for Netflix; for example, in Q2 2014 the OTT service had only 1.7 million adds.

Read more at broadcastingcable.com.