We already announced it a few months ago: Spotify was going to be more expensive. And of course, in a service where every euro counts, this change should perhaps be considered. Spotify and Apple Music are like Madrid and Barça: there will always be rivalry. Some users prefer one, others the other, they belong to one, but lately in the world of music streaming, the balance is starting to lean towards Cupertinoespecially with Spotify’s recent initiatives.
Not so long ago, parity was the norm between these two services. Both cost exactly the same, both in their individual, family and student plans. However, a few months ago, Apple Music became slightly more expensive, and some turned to the green alternative. However, all that glitters is not gold and the Swedish company has started to increase quotas in a good handful of countries.
Spotify’s new prices in 2024
As we said at the beginning, the price of Spotify Premium will change and it will change first in the United States and then the jump will go through Latin America. Although Europe still does not confirm any changes, here is how the prices of the Spotify package with the different benefits remain:
- Individual plan: goes from $10.99 to $11.98 per month.
- Duo Package: goes from $14.99 to $16.99 per month.
- Familiar planning: from $16.99 it goes up to $19.99 per month.
- Student plan: Finally, this economical package remains at the same price, namely $5.99 per month.
The Family plan is getting the biggest price increase, at $3 extra each month. And remember, Spotify is still offering 320kbps Spotify audio quality. bit rate while Apple Music has offered 24kbps, 96kbps and 160kbps streaming for a year now. That is, full lossless audio support.
Apple Music now offers more for less
It’s not a bad thing that they’re raising the price. In fact, it’s reasonable that they’re doing so, but the news should have come with it, and it didn’t. The reality is that the Swedes are earning less and less per user. This last year, they went from 4.32 to 4.37 dollars.which may not seem like a lot, but when you multiply it by the 551 million people who use it, the perception changes. They hope that with this increase they can reverse the situation, but it doesn’t seem like they will succeed.
If there was a possibility – remote – that I would switch to Spotify, with this, it ended up disappearing. Apple Music’s sound quality is infinitely betterIt has Dolby Atmos in addition to offering Spatial Audio support, and it integrates seamlessly with my Apple TV, HomePod, AirPods, iPad, Mac, and iPhone.
As if that wasn’t enough, since I have the student version, It also includes Apple TV+ completely freeand with the releases they’ve been putting out lately, I think it’s definitely worth it. And if you start looking at the Apple One plans, the discounts are even bigger. The only thing I think Spotify is superior in is the recommendation thing, but if Apple takes that a little seriously, it could leave the Swedes “bankrupt”, as they say.
An older version of this article was originally published on 07/26/2023.
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