Spotify Raises Subscription Prices

Spotify has announced that it will be raising its subscription prices. Deadline reports that the music streaming service is bringing Premium Individual subscriptions up to $10.99 a month — which is $1 more than the $9.99 level it started at in 2011 — and Premium Duo is going up by $2, to $14.99. Additionally, Premium Family is increasing to $16.99 and Premium Student will be $5.99, an increase of $1 for both.

“The market landscape has continued to evolve since we launched,” Spotify said in a statement on the pricing increase. “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 announcement isn’t quite a surprise, as earlier this year CEO Daniel Ek stated in an earnings call that Spotify would “like to raise prices in 2023.” However, no specific timeline was set. “When the timing is right, we will raise it and that price increase will go down well because we’re delivering a lot of value for our customers,” Ek added.

The move comes roughly a year after one of Spotify’s biggest controversies: an artist boycott over the inclusion of Jor Rogan’s podcast on the platform. The situation was sparked in 2022 when legendary singer-songwriter Neil Young — who has long been a musical compatriot to David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash — requested that his music be pulled from the service, citing unsubstantiated statements on Covid-19 made by Rogan and guests of the podcast. Many artists soon followed suit, including Crosby, Stills and Nash. Other artists that joined in the protest include Joni Mitchell, India Arie, and 90s alt-rockers Eve 6.

“We support Neil and we agree with him that there is dangerous disinformation being aired on Spotify’s Joe Rogan podcast. While we always value alternate points of view, knowingly spreading disinformation during this global pandemic has deadly consequences,” bandmates Crosby, Stills and Nash said at the time. “Until real action is taken to show that a concern for humanity must be balanced with commerce, we don’t want our music – or the music we made together – to be on the same platform.”

Spotify responded to the mass musical protest, with a spokesperson telling The Washington Post in a statement, “We want all the world’s music and audio content to be available to Spotify users. With that comes great responsibility in balancing both safety for listeners and freedom for creators. We have detailed content policies in place and we’ve removed over 20,000 podcast episodes related to covid-19 since the start of the pandemic. We regret Neil’s decision to remove his music from Spotify, but hope to welcome him back soon.” Young’s music has since returned to the service.