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Yesterday we learned that Google is testing a new YouTube subscription called “Premium Lite“. This ditches things like background playing and YouTube Music, while getting rid of the ads that play during videos. Today, Spotify is trying something similar with its new Spotify ‘Plus’ subscription.
This is priced at $0.99 per month and offers a mix of the existing free and premium subscription tiers. With Spotify Plus, users would be able to skip an unlimited number of songs, while also being able to actually navigate Spotify’s vast library. Compared to the free version, this is a much better option as Spotify Free only lets you shuffle songs within albums or playlists.
After being discovered by a reader of The Verge, Spotify has since confirmed its testing of this new tier and provided the following statement:
“We’re always working to enhance the Spotify experience and we routinely conduct tests to inform our decisions,” a spokesperson said. “We’re currently conducting a test of an ad-supported subscription plan with a limited number of our users.”
Not only are we unsure as to how large this testing base is, but Spotify also gave no indication as to whether this option will be made available to everyone.
The pricing here does seem a bit weird, as Spotify Plus would basically give you free rein of the app, with ads, for less than $1 per month. If anything we would have expected to see Spotify Plus wedged right in between the free and premium tiers, coming in at $4.99 per month. Coincidentally this is the same price as Spotify’s Student Plan, so it wouldn’t surprise us if Spotify is limiting this to a super small test base.
With Spotify facing increasing competition from the likes of Apple Music and YouTube Music, perhaps this will give the company another leg up to keep its lead.
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