MSE News: Spotify to hike prices by up to £24/yr from June

MSE_Helen_K

Music streaming giant Spotify is to hike the price of at least some of its paid-for packages from June.

Read the full story:
'Spotify to hike prices by up to £24/yr from June'

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jasdev

Clearly this will affect some customers, but I would be willing to pay more so long as I could be sure the money was going towards the artists that I listen to.

I've heard about services such as bandcamp or indeed, buying digital downloads or merchandise could deliver even greater returns to individual artists, but I'm content with the Spotify platform and listening model.

jbrassy

I was half expecting this after a questionnaire popped up on my Spotify asking about potential price rises. 

In a strange way the questionnaire actually helped me save money. It's just me and my partner who use Spotify and I'd been paying for Spotify's family account for ages. I had never realised (or bothered to look) that there is a Duo plan which could have saved me a couple of quid a month. 

Despite the changes, Spotify is still good value in my opinion. £13.99 a month for unlimited music between 2 people is incredible considering how much I used to pay for CDs in my teenage years (and after Napster got closed down).  

giraffe69

What is the minimum amount to use the word "hike" rather than "increase"? Not sure £2 per month qualifies for hike.

ballyblack

However the price of its Individual subscription - currently £9.99/mth - doesn't appear to be changing.

Does the poster MSE Helen k  work for the Daily Mail with attention grabbing headlines?? of £24 per month

jbrassy

ballyblack said:

However the price of its Individual subscription - currently £9.99/mth - doesn't appear to be changing.

Does the poster MSE Helen k  work for the Daily Mail with attention grabbing headlines?? of £24 per month

The headline does not say £24 per month. It actually says:
"Spotify to hike prices for some by up to £24/yr"

£24 a year equates to £2 per month. £2 a month is the maximum price increase that anyone will face and only applies to people who have the Family plan. The individual subscription package is not increasing in price, but if you live with more than one other person,  buying one of the alternative packages will be more economical. 

ballyblack

Opps! but my complaint still stands. Spotify charges by the month.........why mention year?

jasonwatkins

I started a family plan and filled the spaces fairly easily.   This price rise will bump it to about £2.80 a month i think.

RumRat

We both use one individual plan in our house. I guess it would depend on how much you rely on things like 'recommendations' etc, but, we have our own playlists and have no problems picking and playing albums from a joint library. If we both (very rarely) want to use it at the same time, one of us will use 'Offline mode'. Which means we can only listen to downloaded albums, but that's fine and it works well....So, we aren't really going to be affected by this price rise. 
Compared to the music spend of years ago the whole streaming thing is quiet a bargain. I remember buying at least 3 or 4 albums a month before streaming so, for the amount of music we get access to and the ease of playing anywhere it's good value.

ALB38_2

Another alternative worth mentioning is Deezer, which also offers a free version and has a bigger database than Spotify. 

Jenni_D

There's also Amazon Music ... if you already have a Prime account then you get a reasonable selection of music without having to pay any extra. (We have Echo Dots and often play music through them via Amazon Music and haven't felt any dissatisfaction with what's available).