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More price hikes are in order, folks. This time, Pandora has announced that they are making the unfortunate decision to increase the price of a monthly Pandora One ad-free radio subscription.
The price is 25% higher than before, though considering the subscription was only $3.99, that means you’re only paying $1 more each month. There are a couple of important things to note about the change:
- Those currently on the $3.99 per month plan will be locked into the rate until further notice.
- New subscribers will see the change to $4.99 per month plan starting in May.
- Those on an annual subscription for $36 per year will be automatically converted to a $3.99 per month “loyalty” subscription, as the annual option will no longer be available.
What Pandora doesn’t tell you is that the $3.99 per month option is more expensive than the $36 per year subscription, so keep that in mind when deciding whether or not to keep your subscription. Of course, with any price increase comes the inevitable excuse:
We’ve been fortunate to be able to offer Pandora One at an affordable price since its debut in 2009 at $36 per year and later with the introduction of a monthly subscription for only $3.99 per month.
Over this same period, the costs of delivering this service have grown considerably. For example, the royalty rates Pandora pays to performers via SoundExchange for subscription listening have increased 53% in the last five years and will increase another 9% in 2015.
And those are simply the breaks of life. Sometimes, things get more expensive, and those costs are passed down to the end-user. Now, it’s just a question of whether Pandora’s service is worth putting up with said costs.
It’s up to you to make that decision, so if you aren’t already a subscriber and you’ve been thinking about becoming one, be sure to download the app in the Google Play Store and see what they have to offer. You won’t be able to secure current pricing if you let May come and go without making a decision.
[via Pandora]
I honestly don’t get Pandora One, I can literally get it for free via hitbliss and I tried it one month, then it expired… I never really noticed what I was getting. I see the feature list but it just really never seems to be noticeable to me.
Yeah, I’ve been getting it for “free” with HitBliss as well (http://www.hitbliss.com/pandora.html). It’s definitely worth the “free” price and I find it’s a nice supplement to other services like Spotify which I pay for. Spotify’s radio functionality is still pretty weak, so I like Pandora when I’m just in the mood for variety and don’t feel like sticking w/ a single album or playlist. So, Pandora is my “background” music and Spotify if my goto on my phone b/c I can download pretty much anything I want and listen to it offline (esp. good for traveling). Maybe Spotify will scoop up Pandora at some point (then I’d have the best of both worlds).
It would be really hard to justify paying $4.99 for Pandora vs what you can get for the Spotify or similar services for $9.99 or cheaper.
Just in: The 5 people still using pandora reported being disappointed.
Sorry Pandora One, Google Music has been my go to for music ever since they launched. You’re cheaper, but Google Music packs a bigger punch :)
When they launched all access I signed up for it and couldnt find half of the music I wanted to hear on google. I dont know if it has changed but their selection used to suck. Pandora has all the wierd obscure stuff I like… and it keeps recommending more stuff I’ve never heard but looooove.
It is free with a few ads best deal.
but spotify at least lets you pick a playlist with songs you want to hear. It may be shuffled, but at least you won’t hit your skip limit within a minute.
That’s all free too.
I had pandora one because while blasting music a nice Victory Secret Pink ad would blurt out and that was pretty embarrassing. But once I started “Liking” certain songs they would repeat at least 5-8 times an hour. Got sick of it and canceled the subscription. They were better when it was considered the music genome project.
I agree. once you start to “like songs”, songs start to get repeated very frequently. Is Pandora still valuable amongst the other big dog music streaming services? well that’s up to the individuals but I just deleted Pandora and now adventuring through iheart radio, tunein pro, and songza. greatest combo there is.
There is also a nice module in Xposed regarding Pandora. Check it out.
Thanks but I’m on an iphone 5s. Previous phone was the note 3. On android I usually just download the hacked pandora app.
Why the hell would you downgrade like that…. omg
Does anyone really use Pandora?
People pay to listen to music?
I think pandora easily makes the best radio stations…play all access is hit or miss when i try to make a radio…pandora always seems spot on…but i dont pay for it and only use it at the gym..and only sometimes
I have a Pandora One music subscription (one of the few, I guess). But given the other choices, I’m finding it harder to justify my paid subscription. (I really prefer Google Music.). I don’t like the repeats in my stations. And I’ve noticed ads with a One subscription, too. That was quite an unpleasant surprise! What I really liked about Pandora was the integration with my Sonos system. Regardless, I think I will let my membership lapse, as there are definitely better alternatives out there now.
up until this article, i thought pandora was a dying music service
I’m done with Pandora even with paid version I would run out of skips fast then stuck listening to annoying songs. They used to give skips per station but recently it became run out of skips on one then you can’t skip on others. Plus I thought Pandora was supposed to learn my music habits if so why was I wsing all my skips in a row all the time
Polar bear club!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!