Streaming: Spotify plans to raise prices

Spotify is planning a price increase for its own music streaming subscription in several countries. That said Spotify CEO Daniel Ek on the occasion of the presentation of the latest quarterly figures , as reported by Techcrunch and Billboard among others. It would be Spotify’s first price increase in Germany since it started in March 2012 .

Since then, a premium subscription from Spotify has cost 9.99 euros per month and there is a family subscription for 14.99 euros per month, with which up to six people can use the subscription at the same time. At first there was also the Spotify Unlimited subscription for 5 euros per month, which reduced the sound quality. This subscription model has not been offered for years.

In July 2020, the new subscription model Spotify Duo Premium was launched, with which two people can use the streaming service in parallel for a price of 12.99 euros per month. Another option is Spotify Free, which is financed by advertising and for which customers do not have to pay any subscription fees.

Exact plans for Germany are still unclear

Ek has announced that the price increase is planned primarily in those countries where Spotify has a strong market presence and where the service is heavily used by subscribers. Ek assumes that customers in these markets are willing to pay more. According to the Billboard, there have already been initial price increases in Scandinavia, but these do not yet apply to all. In some cases, the subscription fees were increased by up to 14 percent.

It is currently unclear whether and when Spotify will implement the price increase in Germany. In the field of music streaming subscriptions, the price structure is very different from, for example, the market for video streaming subscriptions. In the case of music streaming subscriptions, the basic subscription costs 9.99 euros per month for all major providers and a family subscription is billed at 14.99 euros for all providers. Sometimes there are some discounts if the customers meet certain conditions. It is not yet foreseeable whether the competition would follow Spotify’s move and then increase their prices as well.

The price structure in the video streaming subscription segment looks completely different. Here the respective providers demand different subscription prices.