Spotify has some bad news for its UK users. The music streaming service is reportedly reaching out to Premium account owners to notify them that a price hike is on its way.
According to emails spotted by What Hi-Fi?, Spotify has warned a number of users that the service’s subscription prices will change from April 30.
Premium Student users will see an increase from £4.99/€4.99 a month to £5.99/€5.99 a month, while Premium Duo users will move from paying £12.99/€12.49 a month to £13.99/€13.99 a month.
Finally, Premium Family users will see the biggest change with prices going from £14.99/€14.99 a month to £16.99/€17.99 a month from the end of April, meaning families will need to shell out an additional £2 each month to keep their subscription going.
Spotify says (via TechRadar) it’s raising prices “so we can continue to bring you new content and features that you can enjoy as a family and as individuals.”
The good news is that users subscribed to Spotify’s Individual tier appear to have come out of these changes unscathed, with prices remaining at £9.99 a month.
While the above changes will come into effect for new users from April 30, Spotify has notified current subscribers that they will not see the updated prices on their bill for an additional month. This means there’s still time to get out if this change has left Apple Music looking more appealing. The additional month also applies to users currently on a trial once their free month is up.
This isn’t the first we’ve heard of a potential price hike for the popular streaming service. Earlier this year, Spotify reached out to users with a survey to find out how much they’d be willing to pay out for the service.
For more on Spotify, make sure to check out our breakdown of the best music streaming services, as well as our explanation of Spotify HiFi. You can also visit our guides on how to activate the new ‘Hey Spotify’ voice assistant and how to add a Spotify widget in iOS 14.
Update: Trusted Reviews reached out to Spotify, who responded with the following statement.
“With more than 70 million tracks and 2.2 million podcasts, Spotify continues to innovate and invest in providing our listeners with greater value than ever before, including the best audio content and user experience. We offer a variety of subscription plans tailored to our users’ needs, and we occasionally update our prices to reflect local macroeconomic factors and meet market demands while offering an unparalleled service.
“Beginning on April 30 in the UK, we’re increasing the price of our Student plan for new users from £4.99 to £5.99, the price of our Duo plan for new users from £12.99 to £13.99, and the price of our Family plan for new users from £14.99 to £16.99. Existing subscribers have a one month grace period”.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
