Bundling Adds Value for Potential Subscribers & Aids Retention

A new report from Ampere Analysis indicates that bundling streaming services adds perceived value to potential subscribers who feel they are already paying for too many subscriptions and helps to retain subscribers, as 47 percent of consumers say they would keep paying for a bundle even if they didn’t use all services.

This comes in handy when considering the fact that 52 percent of video streaming subscribers in the U.S. said they are likely to churn from a service within the next 12 months. Of those who churn, 62 percent report doing so because they don’t use the service enough. This number rises to 85 percent for those with five or more subscriptions. For pay TV, 49 percent said they were likely to churn, driven by rising costs.

45 percent of subscribers say they feel like they have so many subscriptions it is hard to keep track of them all, and 48 percent say they often subscribe, cancel and resubscribe to different services as and when they want to use them.

Bundling adds perceived value to potential subscribers, and consumers report being more likely to choose a service that offers access to an additional service. They also indicate that a bundle must offer something for the entire household.

56 percent of those surveyed say that, if they are deciding between two or more similar products or services, they are more likely to choose one if it offers a subscription to a different serfice. 65 percent say that is is key for a service to offer something for the whole household. 69 percent report that if a bundle gave them access to a service they hadn’t heard of, they would try it out to see if they like it.

There are multiple types of bundles to be made. Hard bundles—in which extra services are not optional and services within the bundle cannot be changed—strengthen the value of a subscription for consumers by giving access to more services for the price of a single subscription. For providers, this makes subscriptions more sticky. Soft bundles—in which select extra services are optional but all services within the bundle must be taken—typicall provide a discount and allow consumers more flexibility in choosing what they want to pay for. Add-ons allow consumers to combine exactly what they want from the available selection, with the convenience of a single bill.

As of now, hard bundles make up 36 percent of those available in the U.S., while add-on bundles account for 54 percent and soft bundles account for 10 percent.

Bundling has already proved successful for those that have done it. In 2024, the Disney+, Hulu and HBO Max partnership launched, and HBO Max saw subscription growth of over 10 percent as a result.