Should You Renew Your Music Streaming Service or Switch to a Competitor?
Since most music streaming companies offer free monthly trials, it’s easy to sign up or switch between services to try different ones without paying for it. But with all the options available – and there are many – how do you choose the right one? Here’s a look at the big players, their different levels and prices, and what they offer.
How Much Does Spotify Cost?
Tiers and Pricing: Spotify’s free offerings aren’t all that bad as long as you don’t mind a lot of ads – and you’re listening on your computer.
- Spotify Free: This ad-supported tier offers access to playlists with limited skipping and song playback features.
- Spotify Premium: Premium lets you listen to any track, album, artist, or playlist in any order with unlimited skips; offline availability; and exclusive podcasts for $ 9.99 a month
- Spotify Family: Same features as Premium, but with support for up to six different Premium profiles for $ 14.99 / month.
Pros: 70 million songs with good sound quality, carefully curated playlists, and an extensive selection of podcasts. Decent social tool that shares music with friends. Good algorithmic guidelines for new music.
Cons: The free mobile version of Spotify is even more limited than the desktop version, with a sparse on-demand song selection and too many ads. The possibilities for organizing a large personal library of stored music are extremely limited.
Free Trial : Spotify offers a 90-day trial for a discounted price of $ 9.99 ($ 3.33 per month). Students get a 50% discount on the premium for up to 4 years, and for two living together there is a $ 12.99 per month discount for two.
Is Amazon Music included on Prime?
Levels and prices. There are many levels for Amazon Music, although they are a little confusing.
- Amazon Music Free: This ad-supported service is limited to top playlists and is the only tier with no offline mode.
- Amazon Music Prime: Free (and exclusive) to Prime members, this service offers personalized playlists and a library of 2 million songs.
- Amazon Music Unlimited: The cheapest paid tier offers personalized playlists and a library of 75 million songs. Prime members pay $ 7.99 per month or $ 79 per year for an annual subscription. Non-Prime customers pay $ 9.99 per month . If you’re using an Amazon Echo smart speaker, you can subscribe for as little as $ 3.99 a month for use on one device at a time.
- Amazon Music HD: This level offers personalized playlists and 75 million high-definition songs, as well as millions of other ultra-high-definition songs. That’s $ 12.99 per month for Prime members and $ 14.99 per month for non-Prime members.
Pros: Amazon Music Unlimited has a library of 75 million lossless high-definition songs, as well as carefully curated playlists, podcasts, and personalized stations. Music HD is the cheapest high-definition service on the market, with seven million tracks available in 24-bit Ultra HD.
Cons: Free options are limited to a tiny 2 million songs collection. Many people find the interface clunky and the recommendations less effective than other services, and Amazon Music doesn’t offer fun social features like Spotify Wrapped.
Free Trial / Discounts: You can currently get a free four-month trial of Amazon Music Unlimited. There is also a discount for students who pay $ 4.99 per month .
Is there a free version of Apple Music?
Tiers and Pricing: Apple Music is $ 9.99 / month or $ 14.99 / month for a family membership for six people. There is no free service.
Pros: Large library of 75 million that’s easily accessible across all your devices. For many users, this is a convenient way to transfer your old iTunes library with iCloud access. It has several cool features like downloadable songs and a search tool that helps you find songs based on their lyrics. Lossless HD audio is coming this month at no additional cost.
Cons: People complain about the interface that is too complex, especially in the mobile version of the application. There is a social tool, but it is weak. And this sound is lossless? You may have trouble using it without purchasing new headphones .
Free Trial / Discounts: In partnership with Best Buy, Apple Music offers a six month trial . College students can sign up for $ 4.99 per month .
Is Pandora Really Internet Radio?
Tiers and Pricing: The free Pandora option will take you back to the days when you actually listened to the radio.
- Free Pandora: This radio-style option offers hand-picked, ad-supported stations based on your favorite music.
- Pandora Plus: You get ad-free personalized stations, the ability to skip or replay more tracks, offline listening, and better audio quality for $ 4.99 a month or $ 54.89 a year.
- Pandora Premium: Apart from all the benefits of Pandora Plus, this more expensive tier also offers unlimited offline listening and the ability to search and play songs on demand. That’s $ 9.99 per month or $ 109.89 per year.
- Pandora Premium Family: All of the above for six unique Pandora accounts. $ 14.99 / month or $ 164.89 / year
Pros: Good recommendation if you want to discover new music as the service is more like a live radio station. It can also find music based on 450 different attributes.
Cons: Ugly interface; the sound quality varies and its top quality setting is inferior to what other competitors offer. If you want to create your own playlists, you need to get premium.
Free Trial : Pandora offers a 90-day trial. Students receive a 50% discount, and military personnel a 20% discount.
Why is Tidal so expensive?
Tiers and Pricing: There is no free option for this former Jay-Z-backed streaming node .
- Premium: The lowest paying tier offers access to 70 million songs, carefully curated playlists, and ad-free live streams. $ 9.99 per month
- HiFi: Same as Premium, but with better sound quality, $ 19.99 / month.
Pros: Tidal’s biggest selling point is its ability to integrate with high-end audio devices that can take advantage of its lossless music playback feature. It also offers a lot of visual content such as music videos, documentaries, and live performances.
Cons: It’s expensive and there is nothing special about features (other than sound quality). The interface is not bad, but it does not stand out against the background of other services on the market.
Free Trial: Discounted plans available for families, students, and military personnel. The service offers a one month free trial .