Elon Musk’s Starlink gets hit by inflation, raises prices across the board

After recently hitting the 250,000 customer milestone, Elon Musk has raised the prices on his satellite broadband service Starlink. In an email to customers, Starlink defended the decision to increase charges. Justifying the 10% increase to base costs, the company said: “The sole purpose of these adjustments is to keep pace with rising inflation.”

While inflation is affecting the cost of living for many everyday needs, it's not limited to petrol and groceries. Starlink’s owner and founder recently took to twitter to announce that inflation pressures had affected the raw materials needed to produce Tesla’s cars, and SpaceX rocket launches.

SpaceX’s rocket launches carry the StarLink satellites into orbit. Global supply chain issues and the cost of raw materials has carried through to the space industry. So in order to remain commercially competitive, Elon is passing those costs onto the Starlink customers. 

Costs for Starlink’s broadband service will increase across the board. The basic prices for the internet package includes paying for the hardware, for delivery and shipping, and monthly service costs.

From the 21st of May 2022 the service price will go up by 11% from USD $99 to $110 per month. The hardware will see a price increase of 10% - but customers who had previously put down a deposit will see smaller increases to the cost. 

Prices will usually be higher than this in Australia, as the company changes its charges depending on location.

Trying to soften the blow of the cost increases, Starlink also took a moment to shout out their recent successes.

“Since launching our public beta service in October 2020, the Starlink team has tripled the number of satellites in orbit, quadrupled the number of ground stations and made continuous improvements to our network,” the company said.

“Going forward, users can expect Starlink to maintain its cadence of continuous network improvements as well as new feature additions.”

While for many people the wait continues to get access to Starlink, check out Mozo’s broadband hub for more StarLink information, and great internet plans for any situation.