US Spotify Premium customers could soon pay more thanks to a new potential price increase, according to a new report. After a series of international adjustments and a spate of new feature upgrades that came without added cost, the company is considering increasing prices. The move would follow a wider industry trend as music platforms across the board try to figure out just how high monthly rates can rise before churning starts to become a problem.
A Hike to Rely On, and Industry Signals Emerge
Spotify is planning another US price increase, the Financial Times reports, citing unidentified people with knowledge of the matter; a company spokesperson declined comment on the report. The timing coincides with Spotify’s push to enhance margins after years of subsidizing its growth. The platform recently added Spotify HiFi, the lossless audio streaming counterpart to its Premium family of plans, while maintaining list prices in US markets, eating more cost on delivery and licensing as it followed through on a long-standing ask.
Streaming economics, across the board, are becoming tighter. Licensing fees paid to labels and publishers are rising, inflation is pushing up operating costs, and consumer services are adjusting prices. That marks a significant growth of streaming’s share of the US recorded music market, which now accounts for upwards of 80% according to industry body the Recording Industry Association of America—ramping up pressure on subscription-based services to foot those payouts alongside product innovation.
What Could Change for US Spotify Premium Plans
One possibility is a simple bump to the Individual plan, which sells currently for $11.99 per month in the US. At the other extreme is rearranging benefits among tiers, a playbook that Spotify has employed in other markets. In India, for instance, and with barely a murmur or ripple, the company repositioned Premium as four different plans—Lite, Standard, Platinum and Student—delineating audio quality tiers and advanced features like lossless streaming along with AI-driven music curation. And users wanting the same capabilities that many used to be able to obtain could only do so by jumping up a level—effectively raising the price for like capability.
For US subscribers, it’s worth keeping an eye out for tweaks in how audio quality or multi-account options, and add-ons like AI DJ recommendations, improved discovery tools or restricted account sharing are included.
Audiobooks—which are now included in Premium along with a monthly listening allowance—are another lever. Spotify could limit the included hours in the free (base) tier or might only offer us greater access if we choose a higher-priced plan to better match average consumption with content cost.
Competitive Pressure and the Role of Price Anchors
Spotify’s existing Individual price is also higher than that of Apple Music and YouTube Music Premium, which are both known to list at $10.99 for similar plans. The bundles make the arithmetic murkier: Apple One packages music with cloud storage, TV and fitness; YouTube Premium tucks ad-free video, background play and offline downloads into Music. Said bundles can frequently enhance the so-called perceived value in terms of cost for a consumer’s money and serve to soften the blow for those music price hikes.
At the same time, Spotify’s various differentiators—from its huge podcast catalog to features like AI DJ and ever-more-granular discovery—fuel much of its pricing power. The company is also said to have hundreds of millions of monthly active users and more than 200 million paying subscribers globally, scale that gives it even greater negotiating leverage with rights holders but also raises the stakes for any slip-up that causes cancellations.
Why Spotify Sees Another Hike Making Sense
Three likely powers underpin the calculus. First, rights costs and royalties tend not to go down; labels and publishers keep pushing for more money based on premium features like lossless audio. Second, product expansion is costly: Bundled audiobooks come with licensing and distribution costs that accrue as engagement levels rise. Third, investor expectations—Spotify has said publicly that it will go for margin expansion—put a floor on how low prices can stay in an environment where the feature set grows.
Analysts also note that more moderate price hikes tend to take hold if they are accompanied by tangible improvements users can feel—higher fidelity sound, improved recommendations, or new formats—and especially if the increase remains a few dollars short of rivals. That’s a dynamic that helps to explain why services throughout the entertainment universe are experimenting with higher price points even as competition heats up.
What Subscribers Should Watch as Plans Evolve
Look for minor changes before a full-blown bump: new plan names, revamped audio tiers or tighter guardrails on simultaneous listening. If you care about lossless audio, multi-account support or access to audiobooks, watch for those benefits in the pricier plan. And if you already pay for a bigger bundle from a competitor, it’s worth recrunching the numbers on total monthly expenses versus what playlists, podcasts and features of Spotify you use most.
The bottom line: Spotify appears set to push higher US prices, whether by direct policy change or by shifting a bit of what’s bundled where. The company is betting that its discovery advantage (seriously, the more time I spend with Q—in particular, what parsing through data will tell you about your behavior—the more I’m convinced this actually matters), its footprint in podcast and audiobooks, and the siren song of lossless music will be sufficient to keep subscribers on board, even as Q again pushes the monthly bill higher.
