Prediction: Netflix's Advertising Business Passes $6 Billion in 2027

Streaming giant Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) told advertisers in May that its ad-supported plan now reaches more than 250 million monthly active viewers, up from 190 million last November.

And the money is following the audience. Management expects advertising revenue to roughly double this year, to about $3 billion. It's a small piece of the company's forecast of about $51 billion in total revenue for 2026 -- but easily the fastest-growing piece.

I don't think the doubling stops this year, either. I predict Netflix's advertising revenue passes $6 billion in 2027.

The case rests on three things the company already discloses: a growing viewer base, more countries to sell ads in, and ad revenue per viewer with plenty of room to rise.

Image source: Netflix.

The audience is still growing quickly

A monthly active viewer, in Netflix's definition, is a member who watched at least one minute of ads in a month, multiplied by the estimated number of people in that household. The household estimate comes from Netflix's own research, not a third-party firm.

The definition matters because it changed. In May 2025, Netflix counted 94 million monthly active users (profiles, not people), and Amy Reinhard, the company's president of advertising, said at the time that the figure translated to about 170 million viewers.

In other words, the audience didn't nearly triple over the past year, as the headline numbers suggest. Measured viewers against viewers -- a close but not perfect comparison -- it grew by about half. And that's still impressive growth for an audience this large.

The ad plan is also where new members go. Notably, Netflix said more than 60% of sign-ups choose it in the countries where it's available, and more than 80% of ad-plan members watch every week.

More countries are on the way, too. Starting next year, the plan is set to launch in 15 more, including Sweden, Poland, Indonesia, and the Philippines -- on top of the dozen markets where it sells ads today.

Can the revenue double again?

In 2025, only the company's third year selling advertising, ad revenue grew to over $1.5 billion (more than 2.5 times its 2024 level). And this year's forecast calls for a rough doubling on top of that.

About $3 billion spread across more than 250 million viewers works out to about $12 per viewer a year, or about a dollar a month. Meanwhile, members pay $8.99 a month just for the U.S. ad plan's subscription, following a price increase in March. (That price is per account, while the ad figure counts every viewer in a household.) In other words, the advertising half of this business still brings in very little per viewer. Even doubling ad revenue on today's audience would only take that figure to about $2 a month.

Advertisers appear willing to pay up. Netflix said in August that commitments from its U.S. upfront (the annual negotiation in which advertisers lock in spending early) nearly doubled this year. Reinhard told advertisers in May that 44% of the members who see an ad on Netflix never see that ad on broadcast TV or other streaming services.

Sure, new ad markets typically start slowly, and a weak economy could cut advertising budgets faster than subscriptions. But if the audience keeps climbing and Netflix earns a bit more ad revenue per viewer, $6 billion is within reach.

Even $6 billion wouldn't fix everything

Advertising matters this much because growth elsewhere is cooling. Netflix's second-quarter revenue grew 13% year over year, down from a 17.6% pace in the fourth quarter of 2025, and management forecasts 11.7% for the third quarter. Each quarter has been slower than the last.

Another doubling would mean about $3 billion of new revenue in 2027, or about 6 percentage points of growth on this year's forecast base. For the growth stock, that could be the difference between total growth sliding toward single digits and holding in the low teens.

What advertising can't do is carry the company. Advertising ultimately sells attention, and attention is barely growing. Netflix members watched more than 97 billion hours of content from January through June, up just 2% from the same period of 2025.

Even at $6 billion, advertising would be barely more than a tenth of the streaming service's revenue. Memberships and pricing still set Netflix's growth rate.

So, does Netflix's advertising revenue pass $6 billion in 2027? I believe it does. The audience keeps growing, and the ad revenue per viewer is still tiny.

As for Netflix stock, it trades near $77 as of this writing, or about 20 times expected 2027 earnings. That's arguably a reasonable price. But with growth cooling outside the ad line, I'll watch from the sidelines for now.

Daniel Sparks and his clients do not have positions in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Netflix. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.