Roku immerses his toes in the paid streaming service area, but enters his own new niche.
On August 5, the company announced the introduction of an ad-free streaming service for $ 2.99 per month. This makes it the cheapest large, general entertainment streaming service, far below Netflix's costs, $ 18 per month or Hulu for $ 19 per month.
At the start, it offers almost 10,000 hours of Lionsgate, Warner Bros. Discovery and Filmrise, including Mad Max: Fury Road, the blind side, weeds And Children in the hallIn addition to selected Roku original titles. Nevertheless, it is unlikely that Howdy's content will keep up with the width of the titles and the new content offered for other services. But Roku doesn't want to compete with them.
“Howdy is AD-free with a cup of coffee and for the addition and not with the competition with premium services,” said the founder and CEO of Roku, Anthony Wood, in the announcement of the new service on August 5.
The monthly subscription of $ 2.99 takes place at the right time, since the average price for ad -free relief -free has increased by 23 percent to $ 13.88 in the past two years. Even ad-assisted plans were at higher costs, with the average price increased by 25 percent.
This means that the service address these price -conscious customers and those who want to see classic programming, but want to get tired of interruptions in advertising contracts. According to the market research company Circana, this does 24 percent for customers who cancel streaming subscription due to the high costs. At the same time, 21 percent of the people who reduce their number of spectators will prevent their spectators for free, supported services supported by advertising because they say that there are too many advertising.
For Roku, analysts see moving as a healthy opportunity for the company to continue to diversify its income from advertising and to better monetize the traffic that comes on the platform. Roku reached more than 90 million streaming households in January 2025. The new offer is followed by the Roku channel of the platform, a free streaming platform supported by advertising, which according to Nielsen-Mess air was the most popular fast service in June. Roku also acquired the subscription -streaming service Frndly, a monthly 6.99 dollar service that offers 50 live TV channels and video content in May.
Roku's platform revenue, which includes advertising and subscription income, already has a solid growth course, with the company 18 percent of 18 percent of 18 percent over the previous year due to the strong performance of video advertising and taking over Frndly last year. The company included the introduction of Howdy in its outlook, whereby the platform revenue rose to $ 4.075 billion, which increased to an increase of 16 percent compared to the previous year. Roku is up to date to be positive in the fourth quarter of 2025 and for the entire year 2026.
“By adding ownership and operated subscription services, Roku has more and more opportunities to monetize data traffic from its start screen in order to drive the users onto the Roku channel (which monetized through advertising) to its subscription services, Frndly and Howdy-Fees-Fiever with third-party and subscription fever and subscription fever and Subscribe subscription reduction and subscription subscription reduction.
John Buffone, Vice President and Media Entertainment Industry Advisor at Circana, has added howdy to the company's streaming services that Roku “now plays in all streaming areas”. In view of the popularity of bundling among consumers, Buffone said that he could also see that Roku offers Frndly, other streamers or in collaboration with third -party providers, similar to the subscription service of Walmart, Paramount+, bundled packages from Howdy.
“I think this gives you the opportunity to bundle with SVOD services with your company services that you continue. And if you want to go beyond the media, many activations should also be available there,” said Buffone.
The app started automatically on Roku Homescreens on August 5, which already offers it a free, large range, and it is planned to start the service on mobile devices and other platforms in the future. The only disadvantage for Roku with the service is not to have any advertisements in order to direct consumers to their other services.
“In particular, the only cost of Roku is the opportunities for the non-marketing of other content that may cause a consumer to see ad assed content on the Roku channel,” said the analysts of Lightshed.