Spotify is a great place to discover new music, make playlists for friends, listen to your favorite songs, and listen to your favourite albums. The user experience on Spotify is extremely limited if you don’t pay for it. Upgrade your Spotify account to get unlimited skips, downloads free of charge, offline listening and many other awesome features.
You don’t need to spend a lot to listen to good music. Spotify Premium can be purchased at a discounted price. Before you sign up for Spotify Premium, let’s talk about how much it costs. We also discuss ways to get it at a discounted price.
Spotify plans explained
Spotify is Free
Spotify Free allows you to listen to any music you like on the web, mobile, and desktop Spotify apps, as well as smart TVs or compatible gaming consoles. As long as you don’t mind ads, Spotify Free is free. You can also use core search and play to access specific tracks, listen to replays of albums, subscribe and download podcasts, as well as other features such as the ability to listen to songs on demand and to subscribe to podcasts. The free service is sufficient for casual listeners. However, regular listeners might be annoyed by the constant advertisements, the limited number of shuffles and the slightly lower sound quality.
Spotify Premium: Individual — $10 per month
For a small amount, Premium users can get access to top-tier features such as more than 82,000,000 ad-free songs, the ability to save your music to a device, and better streaming quality. You can save podcasts and tracks for offline listening as a Premium user. This is great for commuters and travelers who use Spotify while on the go. When you sign up for the first time, you get a month free.
Spotify Premium: Duo — $13 per month
Spotify Duo allows you to share your Spotify subscription with friends, family members, or partners “under one roof”. This includes features like collaborative playlists that you and others can create and edit together, and Blend, which is a mix of Spotify’s personalization and collaborative playlists. It automatically blends each user’s (upto 10) musical tastes into a shared playlist. It costs $6.50 each for two accounts, and includes cute sharing features for best friends and couples.
Spotify Premium: Student — $5 per month
A Spotify Premium subscription for students is available at a discounted price if you have a valid student email account. You also get an ad-based Hulu subscription as well as Showtime. You must re-register as student within one year or Spotify will remove your Hulu membership and begin charging you for the Premium membership.
Spotify Premium: Family — $16 per Month
Spotify Family plans are more appealing to those who have loved ones who want to stream music. You can have up to six people in one account. You also get a variety of parental control options, as well as Spotify Kids, an app specifically for children. Spotify Kids features child-friendly music so your children don’t have the worry of accidentally streaming explicit music. You can also create playlists that you only allow your children to listen to. The service offers all the features, including Blend and collaborative playlists. Volume is key. Six accounts would each cost $60 per calendar month.
Spotify deals
Spotify sometimes offers wide deals to promote its Premium services. These tend to give a limited number of Premium months for free. A continuing deal with Xbox gives players four months of Spotify Premium for free when they sign up to Game Pass Ultimate. However, this is only available to those who don’t have a Spotify account. If you pay via PayPal, you can get three months of Spotify Premium free. You may be eligible for a three-month free trial of Spotify Premium if you have just purchased a Samsung Galaxy device. However, this offer is only available in the U.S.
We are constantly seeing new deals so keep an eye out for them. If you don’t find any, you can still get Spotify Premium for one month by signing up for any Premium Plan.
Spotify Partner Premium Plans
Spotify partners with large companies to offer discounts on their service. While these deals may change over time, the most popular are:
Walmart
You can get six months of Spotify Premium for free if you are a Walmart+ member and are a regular Walmart shopper. Only one caveat: you cannot have had a Spotify Premium account previously.
Starbucks Employees
Starbucks is one of the many employers that offers their employees (or “partners”) a Spotify Premium account free of charge.
PayPal
Like the Walmart offer you can sign up to a PayPal account to get three months of Spotify Premium for free.
Important note
Pricing for Spotify can differ from one country to the next. Sometimes prices may not be equivalent in local currency. Plans in the U.S. currently start at $10 per month. However, Australian users can get similar features for just 12 Australian dollars ($7). Users in the U.K. pay PS10 per month ($11), while Indian users pay just Rs 119 (just over $1) per month. You should always check the local prices and look into a reliable VPN.
Comparison of Spotify and the Competition
You have two options when it comes to Spotify. One is Apple Music, the other is YouTube Music. They all cost $10 per month for the premium, ad-free tiers. The other tiers are approximately the same at $10 per monthly and offer similar features. However, Spotify is our favorite — at least in our opinion. Why? It has the best interface, an infinite catalog of content on-demand, amazing curated playlists, and a free Tier (namely Spotify Free) that’s superior to YouTube Music’s free plan for those who don’t want or can’t commit.
