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How Netflix Makes Money Beyond Subscriptions

Netflix’s main revenue source is monthly memberships. Its 2025 filing also names advertising, consumer products and live experiences, but does not report separate totals for them.
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Netflix makes most of its money from monthly membership fees. It also earns revenue from advertising, consumer products, live experiences and other sources—but the company says those non-membership sources were not a material component of revenue in 2023, 2024 or 2025.

How does Netflix make money besides subscriptions?

Netflix’s 2025 Form 10-K names four additional categories: advertisements, consumer products, live experiences and “various other sources.” It does not break out separate dollar totals for those categories. The filing says non-membership revenue was not material to total revenue in each of the three years ending December 31, 2025.

That distinction matters: Netflix has several ways to monetize its programming and audience, but the available company disclosures do not support treating any one of them as a major, separately quantified business alongside memberships. Netflix’s 2025 Form 10-K reported total revenue of $45.183 billion for fiscal 2025, up 16% from $39.001 billion in 2024. It cited membership growth, price increases and increased advertising revenue among the primary drivers of that growth.

Does Netflix make money from ads?

Yes. Netflix sells advertisements shown on its streaming service. Advertising revenue helped drive the company’s 2025 revenue growth, according to its annual filing, although Netflix did not disclose a standalone advertising revenue figure there.

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An ad-supported membership involves two distinct kinds of income: the customer’s plan fee is membership revenue, while the ads shown to viewers generate advertising revenue. The existence of an ad-supported plan does not make its entire subscription fee advertising income.

Netflix’s reported advertising audience figures

Netflix has published two audience figures that refer to different metrics and dates, so they should not be compared as if they were the same count:

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Figure What Netflix said it measures Disclosure date
More than 190 million Monthly Active Viewers (MAVs) globally Members who watched at least one minute of ads in a month, multiplied by Netflix’s estimated average household viewers November 5, 2025
More than 94 million global monthly active users for the ad-supported plan Netflix described this as monthly active users; it is not the later MAV measure May 14, 2025

Netflix’s President of Advertising, Amy Reinhard, said in November 2025 that the company was introducing MAV as a more complete measure of its advertising audience. Because MAV includes estimated household viewers, it is not a count of paid memberships or individual account holders. The earlier 94 million figure uses a different metric and predates the MAV announcement. Netflix’s announcements are available at its November 2025 advertising update and its May 2025 Upfront announcement.

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What are Netflix’s other revenue sources?

Consumer products

Netflix identifies consumer products as a revenue category and describes intellectual property that extends into products based on its content. Merchandise is a straightforward example of this category, but the Form 10-K does not list specific products or report merchandise sales separately. It therefore does not establish consumer products as a material revenue pillar.

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  • No credit card is required to redeem a gift code.
  • Codes are applied to your account as a gift balance. Gift codes can be added to any plan, regardless of the amount.
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Live experiences

Netflix also names live experiences as a source of revenue and says it continues to expand consumer products and experiences connected to its content. The filing does not provide an individual revenue figure or establish that every event is a separately ticketed operation. Its disclosure supports the category, not assumptions about the format or financial contribution of particular events.

Other sources and distribution arrangements

The filing’s reference to “various other sources” is broad and is not itemized in the cited passage. It does not provide enough detail to count licensing, games or partnerships as distinct, material revenue streams.

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  • No credit card is required to redeem a gift code.
  • Codes are applied to your account as a gift balance. Gift codes can be added to any plan, regardless of the amount.
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Netflix also works with electronics manufacturers, multichannel video distributors, mobile operators and internet service providers that provide access to its service. The filing describes Netflix as the principal in these relationships because it retains control over service delivery. When a partner sets a bundle price and there is no standalone Netflix price, Netflix recognizes the net amount collected from that partner as revenue. These arrangements explain how subscriptions can be distributed and accounted for; Netflix does not identify them as a separate major non-membership stream.

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  • Give the gift of entertainment so your friends and family can stream unlimited films and Netflix original series. Whether your loved one already has a Netflix account or they will be creating a new account, they can use a Netflix gift card toward their membership.
  • No credit card is required to redeem a gift code.
  • Codes are applied to your account as a gift balance. Gift codes can be added to any plan, regardless of the amount.
  • Redemption: Online

What Netflix’s disclosures do—and don’t—show

  • Clearly named: advertising, consumer products, live experiences and various other sources, in addition to monthly membership fees.
  • Quantified: overall revenue of $45.183 billion for fiscal 2025 and $39.001 billion for fiscal 2024, as reported in the 2025 Form 10-K.
  • Not separately quantified: advertising, consumer products, live experiences and the broad “other” category in that filing.
  • Described as not material: revenue from sources other than monthly membership fees in each of fiscal 2023, 2024 and 2025.

Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.

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