Spotify to Increase Premium Plan Pricing After Demonitising Tracks with Under 1k Streams

Spotify Will Be Raising The Price Of Its Monthly Subscription By Around $1.00.

For years, Spotify maintained its monthly subscription at $9.99, until last July when Premium rose to $10.99. Now, the leading subscription music service seems poised for another price hike, with Bloomberg reporting an increase of $1 to $2 in the UK, Australia, Pakistan, and two other markets by the end of April, followed by a planned increase for US customers “later this year.”

However, there’s a significant caveat: this assumes interest in listening to audiobooks on Spotify. Part of the reason for these subscription increases is to cover their cost. Spotify has already become the second-largest player in audiobooks behind Audible and is rapidly expanding its efforts into new countries.

For those content with getting their audiobook fix elsewhere, Spotify will introduce a new “basic” plan at the current $10.99 Premium rate, excluding audiobooks while still bundling music and podcasts. Hopefully, this doesn’t entail settling for basic audio quality.

Furthermore, the company reportedly still intends to launch its long-rumored “Supremium” plan, featuring lossless streaming and other features. Recently, some Spotify users noticed a Dolby Atmos logo on the app’s Now Playing screen, hinting at the possible addition of spatial audio as part of Supremium’s bonus features.

By the end of 2023, Spotify boasted 602 million users, with 236 million among them being paying customers.

The success of the previous price increase has emboldened management to pursue further hikes. Under the new pricing structure, individual plans will see an increase of approximately $1 per month, while family plans and duo plans for couples will see a $2 rise.

Spotify’s main competitors, Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., have also implemented price hikes for their music services. Music companies and audio services are currently exploring ways to generate additional revenue from their most dedicated fans. Presently, all listeners pay the same rate for access to a musician’s catalog. However, there’s a segment of fans willing to pay significantly more to support their favorite artists, as evidenced by the increasing prices of concert tickets, merchandise, and even vinyl records for Korean artists.

Spotify has yet to officially announce the impending price increase.