Spotify’s New $4.99 Student Bundle Adds Free Hulu Subscription

Spotify and Hulu are partnering to bundle their services at an extremely low price for students, the companies announced Thursday.

The single-subscription bundle includes access to Spotify Premium as well as Hulu’s “Limited Commercials” plan for $4.99 per month. Since Spotify Premium already costs $5 a month for students, the promotion basically adds on Hulu access for free. At launch, only undergraduate students enrolled in a U.S. Title IV accredited college or university will be eligible. Those with an existing student plan can also switch over to the Hulu bundle.

“In bringing Spotify and Hulu together, we’re now able to offer students — both the millions already on Spotify Premium, and those who are new to Spotify — access to the world’s best music, TV and movie content in the simplest way possible,” Spotify’s Alex Norstrom said in a statement. Currently, the partnership doesn’t suggest any cross-platform content: users will still use each service individually, through their respective apps.

It’s the first time that Spotify has partnered with a TV and movie streaming service, but it’s not the company’s first foray into video and TV content. According to Bloomberg, the music-streaming platform had once tried to offer a selection of TV channels in its own Europe-based video service. Those plans failed, but Spotify did confirm that it would continue to focus on music-oriented videos.

The move is also indicative of Spotify’s battle with Apple Music. While Spotify has nearly twice as many subscribers as Apple’s streaming platform, Cupertino has been making efforts to bring more original video content to the platform. The partnership suggests that Spotify is looking to level the playing field with Apple Music, but has stopped short of building its own TV and video content service from scratch.

Both companies said that they will offer similar bundles to a broader demographic in the future, but didn’t announce any further details about those plans.