Photo Credit: Brett Jordan
On the heels of fresh U.S. price increases from Spotify, Amazon Music, and YouTube Music, Apple Music has once again upped its own subscription charges – including a nearly 18% bump for Family.
The Apple-owned DSP reached out to DMN with word of the upward adjustments, which went into effect this morning. Now, stateside subscribers are paying $11.99 per month for Apple Music Individual and $19.99 per month for Family – up from $10.99 and $16.99 per month, respectively.
As many will recognize, the increased prices, like a portion of those unveiled by Amazon Music in February, are beneath their Spotify counterparts: $12.99 monthly for the audiobook-equipped Individual tier and $21.99 monthly for Family.
Technically, Amazon Music Unlimited undercut Spotify with its Prime member pricing on Individual, which offers a further discount for full-year billing but will set non-Prime members back $12.99 per month. On the other hand, Unlimited Family costs $21.99 per month.
Put differently, there are many moving parts in play when it comes to streaming pricing, and the days of an across-the-board $9.99 monthly price tag for Individual are little more than a distant memory.
For rightsholders, that’s probably just as well; even setting aside DSPs’ feature additions and catalog expansions in recent years, inflation alone means the time was (and evidently remains) right to increase prices.
To be sure, the major labels have long been pushing for streaming price hikes in established markets and elsewhere – besides advocating for adjacent steps to enhance ARPU, the adoption of “a modest fee” for ad-supported accounts, and more.
On the opposite side of the equation, however, the strategy isn’t quite as popular among consumers, many of whom are taking to social media to vent about on-demand streaming’s pricing.
Of course, the obvious risk here is that fed-up fans will axe their subscriptions, thereby turning established markets’ well-documented paid-user plateaus (and in some instances declines) into a mass exodus. The possibility is especially interesting for Spotify given the service’s relaxed free-tier restrictions.
(Plus, the AI slop avalanche is hitting certain platforms harder than others; Deezer is alone in tagging machine-made garbage, and Qobuz, which in February published an “AI Charter,” is posting strong revenue growth. Meanwhile, the affordability-minded Pandora still charges $10.99 per month for Individual and $17.99 per month for Family.)
Furthermore, Apple Music doesn’t have an ad-supported option and has historically been reluctant to raise prices – instead focusing on leveraging Music (as well as features including Spatial Audio therein) to drive value across its wider hardware ecosystem.
As such, the DSP in February hinted that new increases weren’t in the near-term cards. Regarding what changed in the interim, Apple emailed DMN a brief statement attributing the pricing recalibration to “rising licensing costs.”
“As a result of rising licensing costs, Apple Music is increasing its subscription price beginning today,” Apple confirmed to DMN.
Is the pivot indicative of additional upcoming shifts across the streaming space? It seems that way. Late May brought with it evidence of possible new subscription tiers on Apple Music, and Spotify’s AI-heavy “Super-Premium” ambitions aren’t a secret.