Spotify raises the price of Premium by $1 – here are your options

Streaming music service Spotify will raise the price of its Premium tier in the United States by $1, with the announcement coming as soon as next week, according to a report published by the Wall Street Journal on Friday.de

The price increase will ultimately see Spotify users in the United States pay $11 a month for the privilege of streaming an unlimited amount of music from the service’s catalog of tens of millions of songs and other audio tracks and podcasts.

Price increases will also roll out to other countries over the next few months, the Journal said, citing anonymous sources.

There is little reason to doubt the accuracy of the report

Since last year, Spotify executives have affirmed their desire to raise prices on streamers in order to offset higher licensing costs and other expenses.

Spotify’s competitors, Apple Music and Amazon Music have implemented their own price increases recently, with premium subscribers to each service paying around $11 per month as well.

Spotify has largely resisted raising prices in the United States and elsewhere. But it has faced increased pressure from investors to generate more revenue from its services.

The company spent hundreds of millions of dollars acquiring podcast studios like Gimlet and the Ringer along with top talents like Joe Rogan, Barack and Michelle Obama, and Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, with very little in the way of a return to show for those efforts.

Like other media companies, Spotify has also been impacted by a relatively weak ad market over the past year, with companies pulling their marketing budgets in a way that has impacted the bottom lines of major media companies around the world.

Its business woes forced the company to downsize earlier this year, a move that saw hundreds of employees lose their jobs.

Spotify has around 515 million global users, making it one of the largest streaming audio services in the world.

READ MORE: The best Spotify alternatives

The price increase expected next week comes as Spotify looks to incorporate more audio content and features, including a long-awaited high-fidelity feature.

The new content and features could help justify charging customers more money for access to the premium tier of service.

Ways to Save Money on Spotify

Spotify is one of the few streaming audio services that offer multiple options to subscribe to its Premium plan, and many of those options can save people quite a bit of cash.

The best Spotify alternatives

While Spotify is one of the largest and most well-known streaming audio platforms on the market, they aren’t alone in delivering millions of songs, podcasts, and audiobooks to users, and at a pretty reasonable price.

One of Spotify’s main rivals is Apple Music, which offers a catalog of tens of millions of tracks alongside tens of thousands of streaming radio stations and its own three streaming stations Apple 1, Apple Music Hits, and Apple Music Country.

High-quality, lossless audio streams are included in Apple Music, which starts at $11 a month for an individual plan or $17 a month for a family plan.

Apple Music is also bundled in Apple One, a premium subscription offering that also unlocks access to Apple Arcade, Apple Fitness, and other apps.

Amazon Music is another strong contender, with members of Amazon Prime getting a limited amount of free audio tracks to stream without ads.

Upgrading to Amazon Music Unlimited grants full access to Amazon’s collection of songs, as well as podcasts and audiobooks, many of which are presented ad-free within the Amazon Music app.

And, like Apple Music, supported tracks on Amazon Music stream in high-fidelity. Amazon Music costs $9 a month or $90 a year for Prime members; those without a Prime membership will pay $11 a month or $110 a year.

Deezer offers a good selection of songs, with a strong catalog of international fare along with familiar favorites.

For a long time, Deezer didn’t offer high-fidelity music streams, but the service is starting to roll out that feature on supported tracks — and it’s included in the cost of its premium plan.

Deezer Premium costs $11 a month or $99 a year; a student discount knocks the price down to $6 a month but can’t be purchased on an annual basis. Deezer also offers a family plan for $18 a month or around $200 a year.

Other Spotify alternatives include YouTube Music (which is included in YouTube Premium), Tidal, Soundcloud, and Qobuz.

Nearly all of the streaming music services mentioned offer free trials, so Spotify Premium subscribers who are looking at switching to a different service can try each one out before making a commitment.

Reasons to Stick with Spotify

The price increase might be enough to convince some long-time Spotify users to consider switching to another service, but there are a number of reasons why sticking with Spotify might actually be better.

Spotify is a pure-play audio company — unlike Apple and Amazon, which offer a number of non-audio related services, Spotify concentrates its efforts on building the best-streaming audio experience for customers.

And it shows throughout the product, with Spotify having one of the best user interfaces on the market that is both easy to use and offers a number of great features.

The ability to stream music, podcasts, and audiobooks within a single app is a huge benefit for those who don’t want to have to bounce between different apps simply to listen to the audio content that they want.

Spotify has also made significant investments in improving the service, including the introduction of an AI-powered “DJ” that shuffles through familiar tracks and surfaces new ones, complete with its own personality (which is, apparently, based on a real person).

And the service is widely supported across a number of platforms and devices, owing in large part to its decision to be hardware-agnostic.

Whether you own a PC or a Mac, an Android or an iPhone, an Xbox or a PlayStation, a Google Home or an Amazon Echo, a Roku or a Fire Stick (and, recently, an Apple TV), you can play music and podcasts from Spotify – it integrates with just about everything.

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