Earlier this year, it was revealed that Spotify is raising its plans to charge users more for their subscriptions. The new price plans are expected to go into effect in 2021. It is also expected that the company will introduce an extra-premium tier called Spotify Platinum.
Students
Despite being one of the most popular music streaming services in the world, Spotify has been under increasing pressure to pay more to its artists. Last year, it raised its prices and is now testing higher rates in some markets.
Spotify’s new Premium Family plan allows six people to enjoy an ad-free listening experience. The previous plan was $15 a month. The new plan will cost $16 a month when it goes live on April 30.
The company also announced the “HiFi” feature, which allows users to listen to their favorite songs in a high quality sound. In addition, the company introduced full on-demand catalog access on tablets. The new feature consists of over 15 shuffled playlists.
Spotify has also launched the largest ad campaign to date. The ads show off Spotify’s cultural awareness and show off the fact that it is a music hosting service.
The company’s latest announcement also includes a “premium” plan for students. It will cost students $5 a month. A free version is also available. The free version allows users to skip only six songs per hour and only pick from 15 playlists.
While Spotify has not officially announced any price increases in the United States, its competitors have. Last month, Apple Music raised its prices and is now more expensive than Spotify. However, it has limited payment methods in India, which makes it tough for students to sign up.
Family plans
During the third quarter of this year, the music streaming app grew 20% to reach 456 million monthly active users. It also saw the most growth of any quarter to date. It now stands at $53 billion. While the app’s popularity may be growing, the pressure on Spotify to pay artists is growing.
There are many streaming services that offer family plans. Spotify is no exception, but its Premium Family plan isn’t as enticing as the likes of Amazon Music Unlimited and Apple Music.
Spotify’s family plan is notable for its multi-device support, ad-free listening, and personalized song recommendations. This plan has a few limitations, however. First, it only supports up to six users. And, unlike other family music plans, it doesn’t allow for sharing songs with people outside of the household.
The company has also announced that it will be increasing prices for some premium subscriptions. For example, the Premium Family plan will be increasing its price by $1 per month in the US.
The Premium Family plan also features a nifty ad-free experience. In fact, it may be the most cost-effective way to access digital music downloads. It also provides a few other benefits, such as the ability to cache playlists for offline listening and the ability to manage your own music library.
The Premium Family’s most important feature is its ad-free listening experience. But while it’s a nice feature to have, it’s not a feature that you should rely on.
HiFi tier
Several months ago, Spotify announced that it would introduce a new tier of music subscription, which would offer a higher quality of sound than the standard 320kbit/s stream. This new tier would allow users to listen to lossless audio, which offers more detail and deeper sound.
Spotify HiFi will deliver music in CD quality lossless audio format through Spotify Connect. This will give users more clarity, depth, and sonic detail, and will work with Spotify Connect-enabled speakers. The service isn’t yet available, but it’s expected to launch sometime in 2021.
The launch of the new tier comes just months after Apple announced that it was adding lossless audio to its music library. Apple Music currently offers lossless audio in its standard subscription plan, and the service recently added Dolby Atmos and Spatial Audio support.
Apple Music offers lossless music in a tier starting at CD quality and going up to 24 bit at 48 kHz. The lossless tier is priced at $10 a month.
Spotify may be following Apple’s lead by charging for the high-resolution lossless audio. Amazon and Tidal offer lossless streaming, and many other popular streaming services offer a high-fidelity quality setting.
Spotify hasn’t announced when the HiFi tier will launch or what it will include. It’s possible that the company is waiting to implement the feature before deciding on a price. It’s also possible that Spotify will decide to charge for the tier as an upsell.
Extra-premium tier called Spotify Platinum
Earlier this year, Spotify announced an extra-premium tier called “Platinum” which would reportedly include a “higher quality audio” feature. But what exactly is this new tier? And when will it launch?
The Platinum tier is rumored to cost twice as much as Spotify’s current Individual plan, which costs just $9.99 a month. It’s also rumored to include a headphone tuner, audiobooks, and other features.
Spotify’s new Platinum tier would likely include an improved audio quality, more audiobook features, and less advertising. Spotify’s Premium subscription tier is still ad-supported. However, the Platinum plan would remove advertisements from podcasts. The Platinum plan would also come with a headphone tuner utility and Studio Sound.
Spotify is also testing an ad-free subscription tier called “Plus,” which would feature algorithmically generated playlists. The Plus plan would also allow users to skip tracks without limits. But the ad-free option still has some restrictions. For example, the free tier doesn’t allow users to listen to more than six tracks per hour.
Spotify may also be testing a new tier called the HiFi tier, which would offer lossless audio. Although Spotify has yet to announce a release date for its HiFi tier, it could launch it in November.
While it’s not clear what other features will be included with the new Platinum tier, Spotify’s existing Platinum tier includes access to advanced playlists and audiobooks. And it’s also possible that Spotify is working on other features. Regardless, the Platinum plan is an interesting move.
Price hikes expected in 2021
Streaming service Spotify is raising its prices in a few markets, and has announced a new pricing model that will be effective in June 2021. Spotify’s new pricing model is expected to make it more competitive in the streaming audio space against rivals like Apple Music.
As a result, Spotify will raise prices on its Premium Individual, Duo, and Family plans. Its standard Premium plan will remain the same. Spotify’s Platinum plan, on the other hand, will cost more per month. The company says the increase is needed to fund new features and ad-supported podcasts.
The price increase will have a limited impact on the Student Plan and the Duo Plan in the US, and on the Family Plan in Europe. Spotify says it will give subscribers a one-month grace period before prices go up. The company is also expanding early price increases in 25 additional markets.
Spotify has had a rough go of it lately, as shares plummeted nearly 6 percent on reports of lower than expected earnings and subscription sales. Its gross margin has dipped due to increased publishing rates. The company is also losing exclusive content. However, there are some bright spots for Spotify.
One of the largest advantages Spotify has over its competitors is its audience network. As a result, Spotify has a large base of paid users, and low churn rates. The company also has a free tier that is supported by advertising.
Shares of Spotify rose after the news came out
Despite the fact that Spotify stocks have slipped from their mid-pandemic peak for months, the stock still has a market value of $22 billion. That’s more than Snap Inc.’s market value and more than the S&P 500 communication services sector index. However, Spotify has lost nearly $10 billion in market capitalization in the past month.
Spotify has a growing user base, but its profits are low. Its net profit was only 3 million euros in the first half of 2021, compared to EUR4.5 billion a year ago. This was because Spotify paid its licensors more than it expected to make. This increase led to higher working capital needs. In addition, Spotify is focusing on improving its gross margins, which should lead to stronger revenues in the future.
Spotify is hoping to convert Ad-Supported Services users into Premium Services users. This could give the company a lot of pricing power in the future.
Spotify’s subscriptions rose by more than 20% in the first quarter of the year. The company expects growth in the second quarter to be similar to last year. However, it anticipates subscribers to be lower than Wall Street’s expectations.
Spotify has also announced several new content deals. It has partnered with Warner Media to distribute podcasts based on DC Comics characters. The company also launched a COVID content advisory tab. It’s hoping this will draw new users to its Premium Service, which provides ad-free podcast streaming.
