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Spotify: Prices should be increased

The times for streamers seem to become a little more expensive. After we already reported that Netflix will increase its prices, Spotify has now announced such plans. But we don’t know yet how much the increase for the popular streaming service from Sweden will be.

First price increase for over 8 years

It is unfair to compare the pricing policy of Spotify to that of Netflix. While the video streaming service is already making its second price increase within a year, Spotify has waited much longer. More precisely, it has been over eight years since the company raised prices on the German market. But one has to speak of raised rather than raised. After all, at the current price of 9.99 euros for a standard subscription, we are talking about the price that was already paid when Spotify was launched in Germany. Not all countries should be affected by the higher costs. Spotify CEO Daniel Ek announced the price increase when presenting the current quarterly figures.

How much does Spotify currently cost

If you decide to subscribe to Spotify, you have several options. The standard “premium subscription” costs 9.99 Euro per month. For the “Family-Abo” on the other hand 14.99 Euro are charged. The great thing about the family model is the fact that six people can use the access at the same time. Some will perhaps still remember another subscription. This one was called “Spotify Unlimited” and cost 5 Euro per month. For the lower price, however, one had to accept a worse sound quality than the other two subscription models. This is probably also the reason why the model no longer exists. In July 2020 the subscription model “Spotify Duo” hatched from the egg. Here two people get the opportunity to use Spotify in parallel. With all the subscriptions you should not forget that you can use Spotify for free. But with “Spotify Free” you have to live with annoying advertising.

Spotify Premium is probably the most popular subscription model of the streaming provider.

Details of the increase not yet known

It is clear that a price increase will come. But Daniel Ek did not comment on further details during his presentation. The CEO wants to raise prices in all countries where Spotify has a strong market position. Why this is the case is quite clear. If Spotify has many happy users in a country, most of them will be willing to accept a price increase. A look at Scandinavia leaves room for guesswork when it comes to pricing policy. There, there have already been a few isolated price changes. In some of the regions affected, there have been price increases of 14 percent.

Time unknown

We also do not know anything more detailed at the time of the price increase. Fact is that the step of a price increase is a courageous one. After all, the market for music streaming services is very different from that for video streaming services. One looks in vain for price differences with Spotify, Deezer, Tidal and Co. Here, almost everyone is betting on a standard subscription at a price of 9.99 Euro as well as a family subscription for 14.99 Euro. Since Spotify will probably be the first service to increase the price, the service runs the risk of users dropping out and switching to the competition. However, if Spotify is successful with its pricing policy, sooner or later its competitors will take the same step.

Simon Lüthje

I am co-founder of this blog and am very interested in everything that has to do with technology, but I also like to play games. I was born in Hamburg, but now I live in Bad Segeberg.

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