Spotify has confirmed that it is increasing the baseline price of its premium subscription tier in 53 territories, including the UK and US.
It had already been expected that a rise from $9.99 to $10.99 would happen in the US this week, with other territories to follow. Those price increases were formally announced yesterday, with rises across the company’s various tiers.
So as well as the increases for individual accounts, in the US the Premium Duo tier rises to $14.99, Premium Family moves to $16.99, and Premium Student is now $5.99.
“The market landscape has continued to evolve since we launched”, says Spotify in a statement. “So that we can keep innovating, we are changing our Premium prices across a number of markets around the world. These updates will help us continue to deliver value to fans and artists on our platform”.
The music industry has been pushing for Spotify to increase its prices for some time. The baseline price for Spotify in key markets has been 9.99 ever since the service first launched.
This means, once inflation is factored in, the cost of a subscription has been declining year-on-year, which matters because Spotify (like the other music streaming services) has a revenue share relationship with the music industry.
More recently, Spotify’s shareholders have also begun pushing for higher prices. And while there have previously been some price increases in some markets, those were usually on packages like the family plan, rather than individual accounts. Meanwhile, Apple Music, Amazon Music and – as of last week – YouTube Music all started increasing that 9.99 baseline price.
The next question, of course, is whether this will be the beginning of more regular price increases at Spotify and the other music streaming services in order to keep in line with inflation – something we have seen with Netflix over the years.
The full list of countries that will see Spotify price increases implemented is as follows: Albania, Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Guatemala, Hong Kong, Iceland, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, New Zealand, North Macedonia, Norway, Peru, Portugal, San Marino, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom and United States.