Spotify – the music streaming industry’s leader – is hiking its prices across several countries, the UK and the US the most prominent among them. South Africa, fortunately, has been spared. Our guess? That won’t be the case for long. Not when there’s free money sitting on the table, waiting to be spent.
Raising some questions (and prices)
Spotify’s reasoning – besides making a buttload more money — is to “keep innovating” in the ever-evolving landscape that is music streaming. Oh, and because YouTube, Tidal, and Apple have all done it. Spotify didn’t say that in its announcement, obviously, choosing to go down the ‘we’re doing this for you’ route. Thank you, Spotify!
But it initially announced its intentions to follow the crowd back during an earnings call for Q3 2022.
“When our competitors are increasing their prices, that’s really good for us because, again, with our deep engagement that we have and the lowest churn of any competitor, we will likely fare better,” said Spotify CEO, Daniel Ek (via musicbusinessworldwide). It was again hinted at during this year’s April earnings call, with Ek mentioning the company was “ready to raise prices.”
Read More: Spotify could be launching a new “Supremium” tier that includes lossless audio streaming
The increase will see a $1 increase for its US customers, going up to $11 from the $10 it was before. Its other plans; Premium Duo, Premium Family, and Premium Student are also going up, resulting in a $1 increase across the board, aside from the Duo plan, which is going up by $2.
While YouTube, Tidal, and Apple Music have all recently hiked their prices, Apple Music is the only one to introduce their new regime to South Africa, knocking the price of its individual premium account up to R70/m, from the R60/m it was previously. When the time eventually comes to pay the piper, we reckon Spotify will follow a similar mindset, afraid of alienating its customer base.
As it stands, Spotify currently costs R60/m for the Individual Premium plan, while Duo costs R80/m and the Family option is R100/m.
You can see a list of all 46 countries where Spotify is bringing its new pricing scheme right here.