A price increase for YouTube Music has officially been introduced in the US. Photo credit: Rubaitul Azad
YouTube Music has officially joined Apple Music, Deezer, Tidal, and Amazon Music — but not Spotify — raising its US subscription price to $10.99 a month.
The Google subsidiary just recently implemented the price increase for YouTube Music (in addition to raising the US price of YouTube Premium to $13.99 per month), about a month after Tidal announced its own increase. But unlike Block-owned Tidal, which is expected to launch the new pricing structure in August, YouTube has already started, revamping its paid packages.
Of course, the aforementioned $10.99 per month price for YouTube Music is currently available in the US, as is the $13.99 per month YouTube Premium tier. (Previously, YouTube Premium was $11.99 per month and gave customers ad-free offline access to YouTube Music and YouTube itself.)
“We’re updating the price for US YouTube Premium and YouTube Music Premium subscribers to continue providing great services and features,” a YouTube spokesperson told DMN. “We believe this new price reflects the value of YouTube Premium, which gives subscribers ad-free YouTube with background and offline playback and uninterrupted access to over 100 million songs with the YouTube Music app.”
This latest price hike for streaming services has come into effect as quite a few investors and watchers speculate as to when Spotify will ditch its longstanding $9.99-per-month price tag for single subscriptions in the United States.
While Spotify has been experimenting with higher prices in select regions and for certain plans for some time, CEO Daniel Ek signaled in late April that his company was “ready to raise prices” in various markets. However, the exact timing of the move “really depends on the negotiations with the big labels,” explained the 40-year-old.
A month ago, reports indicated that Spotify was preparing to launch a “Supremium” package including hi-fi, adding monthly audiobook credits to its existing premium offering.
Though the latter would presumably bring the long-awaited $10.99 price in the US, Spotify is reportedly looking to take advantage of the expanded premium option for an international release ahead of a domestic launch in October this year.
However, the Stockholm-based platform itself has not set the price range in stone – or commented publicly on the matter. However, logic suggests that the topic will come up during Spotify’s second-quarter 2023 earnings call, which is scheduled for next Tuesday, July 25.