Listening to your favorite songs without interruption is about to get a little more expensive: Spotify has announced that it will raise the price of all its Premium plans. In the United States, that means a Premium Single subscription goes from $10 a month to $11 a month — the first increase since Spotify launched over a decade ago. Its Premium Family and Student plans are also going up by a dollar, now costing $17 and $6 a month, respectively. Premium Duo takes the biggest hit, increasing by two dollars a month from $13 to $15.
The move follows similar price hikes by competitors, with Apple Music, Amazon Music and YouTube Music all raising their individual ad-free plans to $11 last year. Last October, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek seemed to revel in other companies’ increased costs, “When our competitors are raising their prices, that’s really good for us.” At the time, Ek said he would like to charge more for subscriptions, especially in the US, and felt confident that Spotify would be able to in 2023.
People keep coming to Spotify, with the music streamer reporting five million more users in the first quarter of 2023 worldwide, and an extra $12 a year might not make that much difference. Updated prices are rolling out to countries around the world, from the UK to Thailand. Spotify says it will contact users by email to share how much their bill will increase and when it will happen.
