Hallmark+

About Hallmark+

Hallmark+ is the streaming and membership service from Hallmark Media, built around the brand's mission of fostering caring and connected lives. The platform combines ad-free viewing of original films and series with exclusive retail and loyalty benefits, serving one of the most engaged audiences in the entertainment industry.

Hallmark fans are not passive viewers: they organise watch parties, buy merchandise, and participate in Hallmark events, making the brand an active part of their daily lives.

The opportunity

After more than a decade of in-house development, Hallmark found it increasingly difficult to maintain a consistent, high-quality experience across devices and platforms at scale. The cost and complexity of sustaining custom integrations was diverting resource away from what mattered most: content production and the audience experience.

In 2021, Hallmark made the decision to partner with a specialist OTT platform rather than continue building in-house. The goal was to reduce operational complexity, accelerate feature delivery, and create the foundation for a new streaming service — Hallmark+ — without compromising the experience its loyal audience expected.

The solution

Hallmark partnered with Accedo One in 2021 to move away from in-house development and launch its streaming service on a dedicated OTT platform. The technology behind Accedo One now forms part of the Leyra OTT platform, which continues to support and evolve the Hallmark+ service.

Hallmark was able to:

The Outcome

Hallmark+ launched successfully to over one million users, combining streaming and retail into a single membership experience, delivered faster and with lower operational overhead than in-house development would have allowed.

The move to a specialist OTT platform changed the economics of running the service. By replacing custom-built integrations with a scalable SaaS model, Hallmark reduced total cost of ownership and freed internal teams to focus on content and audience growth. Faster release cycles meant the team could respond to user needs incrementally rather than relying on large, resource-intensive development cycles.

More than a re-platforming exercise, the launch of Hallmark+ redefined the service. Integrating retail and loyalty into the streaming experience deepened engagement with Hallmark’s audience, turning a subscription into a broader brand membership.

The embedded partnership model was also a key factor in the success of the launch. Close collaboration and shared product direction gave the Hallmark team confidence throughout a period of significant change, creating a foundation for continued growth without the overhead of managing everything in-house.