Max is cutting the price of its annual plans for new and returning U.S. subscribers, offering 28% off Basic With Ads, Standard and Premium memberships from June 18 through July 15. The discount lands just before House of the Dragon returns for Season 3 on Sunday, June 21.
The promotion lowers the yearly cost to $78.99 for Basic With Ads, $132.99 for Standard and $164.99 for Premium for eligible subscribers who sign up through HBOMax.com, Amazon’s Prime Video Subscriptions or the Roku Channel. It is a limited window, and the usual annual rates will snap back after 12 months to $109.99, $184.99 and $229.99, plus taxes.
For Max, the timing is doing the work. A flagship HBO drama helps frame the offer as a way to lock in viewers before the new season starts, while the company also points buyers toward the math: the promo rates amount to a 40% savings versus paying monthly. That kind of pitch is meant to push subscribers who were already considering an annual plan to act now rather than wait.
The discount also arrives with a complication that the savings copy does not hide for long. Paramount Skydance’s deal to merge with WBD is still pending, and company executives have said they expect to merge Max and Paramount+ in some way once the merger closes. No details have been provided, which means the service subscribers are buying today could look different later, even if this one-year price stays fixed for the first 12 months.
That leaves the offer with a clear short shelf life and a bigger question underneath it: if the deal closes in September 2026 as expected, pending approvals and legal clearance, what exactly will be left of Max by the time these discounted annual plans roll over? For now, the answer is a familiar one for streaming services — pay less today, and hope the platform you joined still feels like the same one next year.
