Spotify Premium Hits $12.99 | Is it Finally Time to Switch to Apple Music?

While we knew this one was coming, Spotify has just officially announced its latest price hike, giving iPhone users even more reason to consider a switch to Apple Music.

Streaming service price hikes have now become a norm in our modern economy. To be fair, Spotify did hold the line on pricing for 12 years, launching in 2011 for $9.99 and seeing its first price increase to $10.99 in 2023.

However, it’s more than made up for that since, setting what could be an annual trend. Spotify raised its prices to $11.99 per month in mid-2024, and announced price hikes for several foreign markets last August, making it only a matter of time before those hit US shores.

This Limited-Time Microsoft Office Deal Gets You Lifetime Access for Just $39

Sick and tired of subscriptions? Get a lifetime license for Microsoft Office Home and Business 2021 at a great price!

While Spotify hasn’t yet given us a timeframe, it announced todaythat Premium subscribers in the US, Estonia, and Latvia will be receiving an email in the next few weeks advising them of a change in subscription price. For US subscribers, that will go up to $12.99 per month, likely starting with their February renewal. Meanwhile, the Family and Duo plans are each jumping by $2, going from from $19.99 to $21.99, and from $16.99 to $18.99, respectively, and the student plan will also go up by $1 a month to $6.99.

While Apple Music hasn’t been immune to these market forces, it seems to be weathering the storm a bit more successfully, perhaps thanks to its deeper pockets or greater leverage with the music industry. Apple Music launched in 2015 for $9.99 per month, and has only seen a single price increase since then, when it jumped to $10.99 in October 2022.

Ironically, that made it more expensive than Spotify for a few months, until the rival streamed matched that price in July 2023. By the end of next month, however, it will have lapped it twice, coming in at $2 per month more expensive than Apple Music.

Running a music streaming service can get expensive, particularly with the licensing costs that have to be negotiated with the record labels and the royalties that need to be paid. As the Financial Times reported in November, the labels have been pressuring Spotify, Apple Music, and others to increase their fees, believing that they’re too cheap compared to video services like Netflix.

Of course, it doesn’t help that Netflix has also been hiking prices like crazy, along with other popular streaming services like Disney+ and HBO Max — and we can probably expect another round this year. If Spotify and Apple are being pushed to chase those increases, we’re likely in for a rough ride.

The Apple Ecosystem Advantage

The good news is that Apple is both far more stubborn and more insulated, thanks to its massive pile of cash. It seems to have no problems running services at a loss if it helps its broader strategy, and while we don’t imagine that’s the case with Apple Music, it also doesn’t need to make a massive profit from the service either. Apple obviously wants to drive its services revenue up overall, but it has plenty of other ways to do that — and it seems to be doing just fine.

By comparison, streaming is Spotify’s entire business. Premium subscriptions are its bread-and-butter, although it likely also makes a healthy pile of cash from advertising.

Still, deals with the music labels are its lifeblood in both cases, and the challenges it seemed to face in rolling out lossless audio — four years after its original attempt at a higher paid tier was seemingly quashed by Apple’s plans to offer lossless at no extra charge — suggests that it could be operating with razor-thin margins, making more price increases inevitable.

Is Spotify Premium Still Worth the Premium?

Spotify has tried to justify its higher prices by sweetening the pot with an audiobook subscription — up to 15 hours of audiobook listening is bundled with Spotify Premium. Considering the price of Audible, that’s not a bad deal if you’re into audiobooks, but it’s still a fairly niche benefit.

Meanwhile, Apple Music is not only $2 a month less than Spotify, but Apple offers an even better deal for Apple fans that’s hard for a standalone streaming service to beat: For as little as $19.95 per month, you can get Apple Music, Apple Arcade, Apple TV, and iCloud+ together, and for only $6 more ($25.95), you can turn the Apple Music side of that into a family plan for up to five other people, and up the iCloud storage to 200 GB.

These bundles represent savings of $12-$14 over individual subscriptions, and the Apple One Premier bundle, which ups the storage to 2 TB and throws in Fitness+ and News+ is an even better deal at $37.95, compared to $69.94 for the whole set of services on their own.