Netflix vs. Redbox

One of the cheapest and easiest ways to entertain yourself, your spouse, and/or your family is to rent a movie. The time you spend waiting until it comes home to rental can be staggering. Tickets for a featured movie are somewhere around $10 during the evening. I honestly can’t even say I know for sure because I haven’t had to pay for a prime time movie in the last few years. If you take a family of four, the total can be $40. That does not include food, drinks, gas, and possibly parking expenses. Renting a movie on the other hand is much cheaper.

What I will be breaking down in this article is comparing the pros and cons of Netflix and Redbox. While Blockbuster is still another option, the fact that they charge you around $5 per movie makes it something that is overpriced and not worth discussing here. The options that Redbox and Netflix, in my opinion, are the best and cheapest. Here are definitions for both, as provided by wikipedia:

Netflix, is the largest online DVD rental service, offering flat rate rental-by-mail to customers in the United States. Established in 1997 and headquartered in Los Gatos, California, it has amassed a collection of 90,000 titles and over 6.7 million subscribers. They have over 55 million discs and ship 1.6 million a day, on average. Netflix previously claimed to spend about $300 million a year on postage. On February 25, 2007, Netflix announced the billionth DVD delivery

Redbox rents DVDs via self-service or interactive kiosks located across the United States in locations such as McDonald’s, Albertsons, Walgreens, Wegmans and Walmart. Entertainment Merchants Association ranked the company fifth largest DVD rental company in the US.

In regards to Netflix, the huge advantage is that the movies are sent through the mail. Because they have been doing this for around a decade now, they have the majority of the kinks worked out. The shipping process to exchange movies is done very well and professionally. As far as a price goes, you can rent two movies at a time for $13.99 per month or three for $16.99 per month.

To pick the movies at Netflix, you can go online and setup a queue where you put what movies you want next. They recently also made it available to watch some movies and TV shows on your computer. During that month, you have the option to send back the DVDs in one day or keep them during the month. There are no late fees involved because your monthly membership handles the charges.

Redbox has been around two or three years but has really picked up in terms of popularity. At first, it was only available in bigger markets (Chicago, St. Louis, Denver) but now has grown to a number smaller towns throughout the country. What Redbox allows you to do is rent the newest movies in a kiosk at Walmart, McDonalds, or other stores that have requested one.

The charge per movie per day is $1. If you rent the newest movie and return it the next day, your credit card will be charged only $1. You can also wait a week and pay the $7 fee involved with it as well. The main reason that I like Redbox more is because it seems that my wife and I only watch movies on weekends. So we have the decision to rent a movie via the Redbox on Friday and Saturday instead of having it sit on the DVD player all week.

I also feel that with Netflix, it almost forces you to watch too many movies. You feel that you want to get your money’s worth during each month so why not spend every weekend watching multiple movies? That is why I like the fact that you can rent one movie a week for one day.

The biggest problem with Redbox is the fact that it is a huge hassle to have to drive out to get a movie and then to return a movie. For those that have not used it before, a Redbox at Walmart is a huge pain. You may have to wait in line behind someone who doesn’t know what they are doing when all you want to do is return a movie. They may flip through every page but unfortunately, you will be waiting.

Redbox constantly has free codes that allow you to rent movies free the first night. There are even websites that have codes for every state that are often updated. Ethical or not, this is a way to save a dollar or two.

Really, it is a personal preference. Is the money that you are saving going to Redbox worth it? Is the hassle worth it? Or you going to watch enough movies to make it feel like you are getting your $13.99 worth with Netflix? With Redbox becoming more and more available, I would try both out.

We were given a trial at Netflix for Christmas and really enjoyed it. It allowed us to get a taste of what they had to offer. While we did get rid of it, the reason was because that gas prices were so high we needed to give up something.

If you are a movie buff, it is definitely worth going one of these two routes. It is cheap and allows you to see some great movies.