Plex Just Lost Their Minds... ($750 Lifetime Pass?!)

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]What you guys got another video, Plex just lost their minds. $750 lifetime pass. Plex Media Server is probably the go-to choice for a lot of people who want to organize their personal media.

[00:00:13]If you look here, the price of the lifetime Plex Pass is increasing on July 1st, 2026. Get yours at the existing price while you can and buy it now. So, Plex Media Server is free for all. You can use it for free. They've got the remote watch pass, which is $19.99 annually, or you've got the Plex Pass lifetime pass, which is £189.99.

[00:00:42]This used to be dirt cheap back in the day. I think people were getting this for like 70 bucks for a lifetime membership. Now, most of the people that bought that are grandfathered in and they won't ever have to pay again. If you bought it £189.99 in the UK, you would also be grandfathered in with that price, so you won't have to pay the extortionate amounts of money that Plex Media Server are now starting to charge for their new license.

[00:01:12]And it gives you the options right there. Plex Media Server, what you get with the free version, and what you get with the remote watch pass, and what you will get with the Plex pass. So, it does give you a lot of flexibility. But, at these sort of prices, no one's going to want to pay the extortionate $750 which they're going to be asking for Plex Pass from July 1st. So, if you get it now, you'll get it at the cheaper price because once it gets to July 1st, it's going to just go right up to $750 if you're living in the States. What that converts to the UK is about £558 or thereabouts, which is an extortionate amount of money. Now, of course, you can still use the free version, but it does limit you. You won't be able to view content outside of your network. It will be contained on your local network. You will still get ads even with that new Plex Pass pricing that they're going to be introducing. And you can see it right here. Uh this was uh from May 19th, 2026. The new lifetime Plex Pass pricing is will increase up to $749.99.

[00:02:26]And that's quite a bit of a a a jump compared to what it was. And they went on to say they've considered eliminating the lifetime Plex Pass in the past uh given that the recurring subscriptions help us sustain the long-term development. Uh we know it is still a valuable option for many in our community. So, instead of retiring it, we're keeping it available at a price that reflects the real ongoing value of the software we've committed to building and maintaining for years to come.

[00:03:01][clears throat] So, basically, if you're one of these people that are new to Plex and you're thinking about getting your uh Plex Pass, probably now is the time to get it while it's at this sort of it's still a pretty expensive price if you ask me, but it's going to go up to uh $750, which is a little on the pricey side if you ask me. So, you can choose whether you want to upgrade to the new Plex Pass at the current pricing that they've got right now before July 1st. That way you won't be paying this extortionate amount of money for uh the Plex Pass, but there is alternatives if you want to jump ship to another uh platform to do all your media. There's plenty of options out there available. But, I don't know how they've come to this massive price hike.

[00:03:53]It's gone from $249.99 to $750.

[00:04:00]That is just way too big of a jump. It's not a small jump. It's a huge jump, and I don't think a lot of people are going to be happy because they certainly weren't happy when there was another big price hike when it was at around about 70 odd dollars for the Plex Pass back in the day, and it jumped up quite considerably there. But, now it's going up even more. So, people may be looking for other alternative media solutions, and there is options out there. There's Emby. Now, Emby is a slick powerhouse media server that bridges the gap between plug-in and play convenience and total control. It's a centralized media server that lets you host all your own movies, TV shows, and live TV. It's got a highly polished interface and feels like your own private Netflix. It also has excellent user management as well with native live TV and DVR support.

[00:04:56]But, some of its premium features just like Plex are behind a paywall.

[00:05:00]Transcoding, converting videos on the fly, smoother playback, these are behind a paid subscription called Emby Premiere. You've also got Jellyfin. This is the privacy purist dream. It's a 100% free open-source media server with zero corporate strings attached to it. It's pretty decent. It's got a direct community-driven spin-off of Emby that handles all your personal media library without any paywalls or tracking. The good part is it's completely free.

[00:05:30]Premium features like hardware acceleration and remote streaming cost absolutely nothing. Your data stays entirely in your hands. The cons are it requires a bit more technical knowledge and know-how on how to set up the remote access safely, and it does feel a little bit less polished than Plex. Next we got Kodi, the ultimate digital Swiss Army knife for your local own theater setups.

[00:05:55]A powerful open source media player designed primarily to run locally on a device directly connected to your TV like your Shield TV, PC, or even Raspberry Pi. When it comes to customization, it's unmatched. You can completely change the interface with skins. It has a massive library of official and third party add-ons. The cons are it's a client, it's not a centralized server. It doesn't easily sync your media layout or watch progress across multiple different devices out the box. But it's the classic home theater PC setup. Next we got MediaPortal. This is a veteran Windows exclusive powerhouse built to turn your PC into a full-scale digital video recorder. It's a long-standing open source media center application built strictly for the Windows ecosystem heavily specialized in advertised live TV integration. One of the downsides is it's only available for Windows.

[00:06:58]And last is Serviio. This is a lightweight DLNA veteran designed to breathe life into any old legacy hardware.

[00:07:07]It's a Java-based media server focused on streaming your local videos, music, and photos and connects to devices via DLNA and UPnP protocols. Let me know your thoughts in the comment section down below what you think about all of this and whether you think it's a little bit too expensive and what other options you would recommend in the comment section.

[00:07:28]My name has been Brian from briteccomputers.co.uk.

[00:07:31]Big shout out to my YouTube members, appreciate the support. Have a lovely bank holiday weekend and I shall see you in the next video or I'll catch you on the Discord server for a chat. Bye for now.