Bell rolls out two ad-supported tiers for Crave

Bell has launched new ad-supported membership options for its Crave streaming service.

Now, customers can sign up for ‘Crave Basic with Ads’ for $9.99/month or ‘Crave Standard with Ads’ for $14.99/month. Ads will be 15 or 30 seconds in length and run before and during TV episodes and films and come from partners like Adidas Canada, Canadian Tire, Food Basics, Google Canada, McDonald’s Canada and Bell’s own Virgin Plus.

Both memberships offer access to the majority Crave’s large catalogue, which includes originals like Letterkenny, HBO shows like Succession and The Last of Us and films like the Harry Potter franchise. However, Bell has confirmed to MobileSyrup that a “marginal” number of titles — “roughly one percent” — will not be available due to licencing agreements. A similar restriction applies to Netflix’s own ad-supported membership.

Here’s a specific breakdown of what you get with each of Crave’s new ad tiers:

Crave Basic with Ads

Concurrent streams: 1
Unlimited registered devices
Video quality: 720p (‘Good’)
Casting with Chromecast: Yes
Casting with AirPlay: No
Livestreams: No
Downloads: No

Crave Standard with Ads

Concurrent streams: 4
Unlimited registered devices
Video quality: Up to 4K (‘Best’)
Casting with Chromecast: Yes
Casting with AirPlay: No
Livestreams: No
Downloads: No

Those who don’t want ads can continue to pay for Crave’s standard $19.99/month membership, which has been renamed to ‘Crave Premium Ad-Free’ (Starz, Crave’s $5.99 add-on, also remains ad-free.)

As a reminder, here’s what you get with Crave Premium Ad-Free:

Concurrent streams: 4
Unlimited registered devices
Video quality: Up to 4K (‘Best’)
Casting with Chromecast: Yes
Casting with AirPlay: Yes
Livestreams: Yes
Downloads: Yes

In March, Crave axed its $9.99/month ‘Mobile’ plan, which was its lowest-cost subscription. Now, the two ad-supported tiers take that place. It also helps the streamer compete with Netflix, who killed its own lowest-cost ad-free membership (priced at $9.99) in June.

Netflix’s cheapest membership is now its $5.99/month ‘Standard with Ads’ subscription. Disney+, meanwhile, introduced an ad-supported tier in the U.S. last year, but there’s been no word on if and when it will come to Canada.

Update: 25/07/2023 at 4:07pm ET — Updated with confirmation from Bell that some titles will not be available on ad-supported plans due to licencing agreements.