When did Crunchyroll raise its prices in 2026?

The company announced the change in early February, and the new price landed on each subscriber's first bill after March 4, 2026. Existing subscribers were moved automatically — there was no legacy rate to keep and no action required to be migrated.

Was the cheapest Crunchyroll plan increased too?

Yes, and that is the notable part of this hike. The entry-level Fan plan took the largest percentage jump of any major US streamer this year, which breaks the old assumption that budget tiers stay frozen while premium plans absorb increases. Every single tier moved by the same flat amount.

Can I lock in the old Crunchyroll price somehow?

No legitimate route restores the old rate once your market has been repriced — returning accounts get current list pricing just like everyone else. The realistic savings options are paying annually to fix today's rate for twelve months, using an official student or promotional offer if one is live when you sign up, or simply pausing during months you will not watch.

Did Crunchyroll raise prices outside the United States?

Local markets are priced separately, and the gap between them dwarfs the US increase. On our verified tables from August 29, 2026, the Fan plan still costs roughly a tenth of the US price in Pakistan, India, and Turkey. Those are snapshots rather than contracts — weaker-currency markets get repriced periodically, as several countries saw through 2024-2026.

Is Crunchyroll worth it after the price increase?

That depends entirely on how much simulcast anime you watch. If you follow multiple shows seasonally, the annual math still beats buying episodes individually. If you only watch one series occasionally, the free ad-supported catalog covers a large back catalog without paying anything — downgrading costs you only new-episode speed and some library depth.

Are existing Crunchyroll subscribers grandfathered at the old price?

No blanket grandfathering exists. Existing subscribers move to the new rate at their first renewal after the increase, and Crunchyroll sends an email with the new amount and date. If you prepaid annually, you keep the old rate until that term ends.

Crunchyroll price increase 2026: every tier went up $2

Yes — Crunchyroll raised its US prices with the first bill after March 4, 2026, adding a flat $2 to every tier. Fan, the entry plan most subscribers hold, went from $7.99 to $9.99/month, about +25%. Sony’s Crunchyroll announced the move in early February, and our own storefront check on August 29, 2026 confirms Fan listing at $9.99 in the US App Store catalog. In percentage terms this was the sharpest dated US streaming hike of 2026.

The 2026 increase, before and after

Plan	Before	After (Mar 2026 billing)	Change
Fan	$7.99	$9.99	+$2.00, about +25%
Mega Fan	$11.99	$13.99	+$2.00, about +17%
Mega Fan (annual)	$109.99	adjusted upward	+$24/year

Source: Crunchyroll announcement of February 2, 2026, via CNBC coverage; after-prices cross-checked against our App Store scrape of the US storefront on Aug 29, 2026 showing Fan at $9.99 USD.

Two things stand out. First, the flat-dollar structure means the burden falls hardest on the cheapest plan — a quarter of the old Fan price is a bigger proportional hit than any other major US streamer took this year. Second, the ad-supported and budget tiers were not spared, confirming a 2026-wide pattern: Paramount+ Essential, Crunchyroll Fan, and Netflix’s ad tier all rose within four months of each other.

Who got hit, and when

Everyone. Existing subscribers were migrated automatically starting with bills dated on or after March 4, 2026 — no opt-out, no grandfathered rate. If your March statement still showed the old amount, April’s did not.

What you can do about it

Annual billing now matters more. A flat hike lands once; paying yearly locks the current rate for twelve months regardless of what happens next cycle. If you were going to stay subscribed anyway, switching to annual at today’s price is the one lever that actually defers future increases.

Downgrade math. Dropping Mega Fan ($13.99) to Fan ($9.99) saves $4.00/month, or $48/year — you lose offline viewing and the ability to stream on multiple devices at once. Dropping to the free ad-supported tier saves the whole $9.99 but delays new episodes and removes the full simulcast library.

Cancel-and-rejoin does nothing. List prices apply to returning accounts. The saving comes only from genuinely not paying during the gap — pause over a quiet season, don’t churn expecting a win-back discount. If you do leave, the walkthrough in our Netflix cancellation guide applies to most app-store-billed subscriptions, including Crunchyroll.

The country angle

The same Fan plan is priced very differently across storefronts. These rows come from our verified tables (all checked Aug 29, 2026):

Country	Local price	USD	vs US
Pakistan	PKR 280	$1.01	−90%
India	₹99	$1.03	−90%
Turkey	₺69.90	$1.46	−85%
Philippines	PHP 99	$1.60	−84%
Vietnam	45,000 VND	$1.73	−83%
United States	$9.99	$9.99	—

Full rankings live at Crunchyroll prices by country and the cheapest-country breakdown.

The honest framing: those gaps are context, not a savings plan. Getting billed in another storefront requires that country’s payment method — Apple ID credit tied to that region, typically — and cheap-market prices get repriced upward periodically, exactly the way the US price just did. Treat the table as evidence of how regional pricing works, covered properly in how pricing arbitrage works.

How this fits the 2026 hiking season

Crunchyroll’s March 4 move landed between Spotify’s February round and Netflix’s across-the-board increase on March 26, with YouTube Premium following in April. Against that crowd, Crunchyroll’s +25% on Fan is the percentage leader among dated US hikes — the full ranked ledger, including far steeper moves in Turkey, India, and Egypt, is in biggest subscription price increases of 2026.

If your renewal email looks different from last year’s, compare it against the table above rather than a headline percentage. And if the answer is leaving altogether, downgrade to the free tier first — your queue survives, and you can always resubscribe when the next season starts.