Netflix's DVD rental service, after 25 years, is shutting down on September 29th this year. Since 1998, more than 40 million customers have rented over 5.2 billion DVD movies from Netflix. With the end of Netflix's legacy by-mail DVD/Blu-ray Disc movies rental service, where to rent DVDs? For people who still love renting DVD movies are seeking for alternatives to Netflix for DVD rental, don't worry. There are many other options offering an equivalent DVD rental services for former Netflix DVD users.
Redbox is one of the largest DVD rental companies in the United States. It's a cheap and convenient Netflix DVD rental alternative by installing kiosks (it now has about 38,000) in retail stores and renting DVDs out at a low-price point. Users can rent DVDs from a local Redbox kiosk where you live. Compared to Netflix's by-mail DVD rental, the low-cost and convenience of renting from Red Box is unmatched, though it doesn't provide many movie choices in a kiosks.
3D-BlurayRental.com is specialized in offering 3D & 4K Blu-ray DVDs and games for rental. This site can be the best alternative to Netflix DVD rental if you have some DVD titles in your Netflix DVD queue that cannot be found elsewhere. It has some hard-to-find titles and you can even email them to help you find a movie. You can rent a DVD from the service via two ways: pay per DVD rental for $4.99 to $8.99, and return the DVD within 7 days (an extra $2 per day will be charged after 7 days), or subscribe a plan starting at $8.99 a month with no due dates and no late fees!
GameFly is well-known for providing games for PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo, Wii, and more, however, there is a less-known DVD-by-mail rental service like Netflix. You can find a huge number of new and old titles available in DVD, Blu-Ray and 4K UHD formats. It's also a place where you can rent DVDs that are newly released movies and you can't stream on Netflix. You can choose from different plans and there are one-month trials for its Blu-ray and DVD or 4K Elite plans, and discounts are available in other plans for the first 3 months.
Horrorpack is a good alternative to Netflix for DVD rental where you can rent horror DVD movies. Every month, 4 horror movies in DVD or Blu-ray formats will be shipped to customers in mystery boxes. You can't request a specific movie title, instead, the site will pick four best titles for you. The movies in the boxes can be a hit or miss but overall it's pretty good value considering you're getting 4 brand new, shrink-wrapped movies. The DVD plan starts at $24.99/month while the upgraded Blu-ray option will cost you a bit more at $29.99.
Cafe DVD is another DVD rental service just like Netflix. It's based in San Francisco and is able to send DVDs to users anywhere in the United States. It offers a massive selection of over 60,000 DVDs, focused on high-quality movies that Netflix doesn't carry. You can subscribe for $9.99 to $27.99 a month and 2 or 4 movies added in your Movie Queue will be shipped to you. If you don't want to become a subscriber, you can also pay $3 or $4 per DVD or Blu-ray rental (plus shipping). But note that pay per rental allows a maximum rental period of 8 days, and $3 per DVD per week late fee will be charged after that.
4KBLURAY4U is a good alternative to Netflix where you can rent Blu-ray discs. On the site, you can find 4K UHD movies in various genres and some newest 4K movies are available. If you can't find something you want, you can ask them to add it to their selection via a simple request. Compared to another UHD rental service 3D-BlurayRental, this services offers more competitive and lower price, with 4 discs rental priced for $16.99. The monthly price decreases considerably as you increase the amount of monthly disc rental.
Some users are asking where to rent DVDs near me. The public libraries are the answers. If you live in a big city, check if there is a public library. For example, Hoopla and Kanopy are offering movies for free rental via local library. In general, these libraries have a wide range of physical DVD or Blu-ray selection that you can brorrow. For example, Kanopy offers more than 30,000 films, including Hollywood classics, foreign films, indie flicks, shorts, and documentaries. In order to rent or borrow DVDs from the library, you usually only need a library card. In addition, you may also stream movies via apps on iPhone or iPad, Android device, Fire TV, Roku, or Apple TV.
In light of Netflix DVD closing, somes users are seeking for other options that provide similar DVD rental service like Netflix, while there are also users who have a large DVD collection are considering building their own alternative to Netflix. But those users are worrying their DVDs may get lost or damaged, especially when the disc is no longer available to buy. Instead of buying a second copy of a DVD, you can choose to make a digital copy of your DVD before you lend a DVD out.
Matthew Palmer is a seasoned content creator with over 10 years of experience in Windows at large. He has been specialized in almost any technology with Windows OS and written thousands of new articles, covering everything from in-depth features of new laptops, latest GPU/CPU PC hardware, games, to software related. While digging into new techs, he continues enjoying painting and comics.
Many young viewers know Netflix as a streaming service that produces numerous original TV shows and movies. Netflix, however, was initially founded in 1997 as a DVD rental company; they were the pioneers of DVD-by-mail rental service.
Unfortunately for DVD lovers, starting on September 29, 2023, Netflix is ending its DVD rental business, citing difficulties maintaining service quality due to ongoing business decline. So if you're searching for alternatives to Netflix's DVD rental service, here are options to consider.
Redbox is arguably Netflix DVD's biggest direct competitor. Established in 2002 to drive more customers to McDonald's, it now operates tens of thousands of DVD-rental kiosks (essentially vending machines for DVDs, Blu-rays, and 4K UHD movies) throughout the US. The DVD-rental company has stands in gas stations, grocery stores, eateries, and retail outlets for instant movie rentals.
Keep in mind that first-time customers can rent three discs at a time, while returning ones can rent up to five movies at once. Beyond DVD rentals, Redbox offers online streaming via Redbox Free Live TV and Redbox On Demand.
GameFly features multiple movie subscription plans priced between $17.95 and $46.95/month, depending on the number of movies you can get out at a time. It also provides a one-month free trial and three-month promotional rates on all plans.
3D Blu-ray Rental claims to specialize in rare Blu-rays. Despite its website looking dated, it boasts an impressive film catalog, including new releases, available in 2D, 3D, 4K UHD, and Blu-ray formats. In addition, unlike GameFly, it features entire TV show seasons.
You can opt for a monthly plan or pay per-disc rental for movies and PS4 or Xbox One games. Subscription plans range from $9/month to $53/month, depending on the number of rentals you can have out at once.
Scarecrow Video claims to be the world's largest video rental store of several video formats, including Blu-ray, DVD, and PAL. The Seattle-based non-profit has a rent-by-mail program and boasts a disc library larger than that of Netflix DVD. It offers over 145,000 titles for rent, including a huge collection of hard-to-find films.
You'll find titles like French films, Italian horror, and Japanese animation. However, it doesn't rent the latest movie releases. To order, visit their website and email them your address, phone number, and video formats. They'll email you a link to the RBM (rent-by-email) site to start renting movies.
Facets is a non-profit national media arts organization that helped pioneer DVD rental by mail. It allows you to rent by mail or buy films from a collection of over 65,000 titles available in DVD, Blu-ray, and VHS formats.
Numerous DVD rental companies boast huge catalogs of classic movies, many unseen by the new generation of online movie streamers. Thus, Netflix ending its DVD rental service doesn't just impact non-streamers; it also denies us thousands of films.
When Netflix launched, Blockbuster (a global chain of video stores where customers could go and rent videos in store) was their biggest competitor. It took Blockbuster years to start offering a similar service as Netflix was already doing. By the time they finally shifted to a subscription service, Netflix already had started the process of shifting their customers to streaming subscribers and was quitting the DVD rental business.
One of the most important reasons that Netflix became an exponential business model is that the founders had the ability to look as an outsider at their business model. They were never happy with the way the business model was at a given time but were always looking where the market was headed in 5 to 10 years. They combined several building blocks for exponential growth by always looking for new ways to solve problems for many customers, to do this with digitalized services (an info based offering) by using a lean approach.
For example, Netflix accepted already in 2007 that the DVD rental business was not profitable enough anymore. They understood that people not only want to rent videos but also want to pay for a large and user-friendly offering, for the comfort of ordering a video from your couch and for no hassle with returning videos. They foresaw the change, used their IT-background to create fitting digital solutions and rolled it out in a lean way.
Also, apart from being one of the pioneers of the industry with their subscription model, the value proposition is yet another element which helped this particular service to become as popular as it is today. In fact, there are a total of four elements that are making all the difference.