Spotify customers received bad news this week: the cost of Spotify subscriptions in the U.S. is going up for the third time in under three years. The change immediately makes Spotify Premium one of the most expensive music streaming services on the market, with the new individual plan costing $2 more per month than comparable options on Apple Music, Tidal, and YouTube Music.
Specifically, Spotify Premium Individual will cost $12.99 per month (up from $11.99), and Spotify Premium Student will cost $6.99 per month (up from $5.99). The company is raising the cost of Duo and Family plans by an even greater margin. The two-user Spotify Premium Duo tier will cost $18.99 per month (up from $16.99), while the Spotify Premium Family plan will cost $21.99 per month (up from $19.99).
Occasional updates to pricing across our markets reflect the value that Spotify delivers, enabling us to continue offering the best possible experience and benefit artists.
Spotify
At the old price of $11.99 per month, Spotify’s Premium Individual plan was already priced higher than the individual subscriptions for Apple Music, Tidal, and YouTube Music.
The old price was the same as Amazon Music Unlimited for non-Prime members, but Amazon Prime subscribers are eligible for a cheaper $10.99 per month rate. Now, Spotify is more expensive than every competitor listed above, and the gap is particularly wide for multi-user plans.
While Spotify notes that pricing updates help it “benefit artists,” the situation is more complicated than that. Spotify pays out a larger percentage of its revenue to music rightsholders (which pass on earnings to artists) than some competitors, like Apple Music. However, due to Spotify’s pricing model, including a free tier, it ends up paying rightsholders less on a per-stream basis than Tidal and Apple Music.
If you uploaded a song to every major streaming service and it earned a thousand streams, Tidal would pay out the most, with Apple Music, Amazon Music Unlimited, Spotify, and YouTube Music following in that order.
The timing of the price hike isn’t a good look for Spotify. It comes just a few months after the company finally delivered lossless, CD-quality streaming for Spotify Premium subscribers in September 2025. The move ended an embarrassing saga for Spotify, as it announced the feature in February 2021 but took nearly half a decade to release it.
The feature was included free with Spotify Premium when it debuted, but just a few months later, the price of that subscription service is going up. Rumors of a Spotify price hike started appearing just one month after Spotify Lossless became available.
Other streaming services, like Apple Music, Tidal, and Amazon Music Unlimited, offer lossless streaming in higher quality than Spotify at lower monthly prices.
That’s not to say Spotify isn’t investing in upgrading its music streaming platform. It continuously adds features, but they may not be the ones music lovers want. Spotify added direct messaging to the app before adding support for lossless audio. It has also leaned into podcasts and audiobooks while cramming artificial intelligence tools into the app.
However, it’s worth noting that Spotify fans rightly prefer the app’s algorithm, recommendations, and social features over the competition, which are generally considered superior.
Is it time to leave Spotify for another subscription service?
Spotify’s latest price hike brings more attention to the fact that the music streaming service is actually not a great value compared to competitors. That is, despite the platform having the largest active user base of any music streaming service on the planet. For Android users in particular, YouTube Music and YouTube Premium look incredibly appealing following Spotify’s price change.
The standard YouTube Music Premium Individual plan costs $10.99 per month or $109.99 annually, although it’s worth noting that YouTube Music lacks lossless audio support. The real value option is subscribing to YouTube Premium for $13.99 per month — just a dollar more monthly than the new Spotify Premium Individual plan, which grants you all the benefits of YouTube Premium and YouTube Music, as well as all the hidden gem remixes that you likely can’t find on Spotify.
For lossless audio fanatics, I like both Apple Music and Tidal for just $10.99 per month over Spotify. These streaming services deliver higher-quality lossless audio than Spotify. They also each offer Dolby Atmos tracks, which Spotify does not. Amazon Music Unlimited also offers high-res lossless and Dolby Atmos support, but its base price before the Prime discount is higher than Apple Music and Tidal.
Is the Spotify price hike enough to finally push you to switch to a different streaming service? I use Apple Music, even on Android and Windows, and I love the no-nonsense experience. It’s just a music app, prioritizing hi-res and immersive audio formats and omitting unnecessary features like podcasts, audiobooks, and AI. Now, it does all that while costing two dollars less per month than Spotify.
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