YouTube Premium Is Getting More Expensive

As inflation seemingly drives up prices of everything, we’ve seen price hikes over the past year for numerous subscription streaming services across the board.

Apple hasn’t been immune to these, announcing the first-ever US price increase for services like Apple Music and Apple TV+ — and the corresponding Apple One bundles. Last fall, the cost of an Apple Music individual plan went up by $1/month, while the family plan increased by $2/month — the first time these prices have changed since Apple launched its music service in 2015.

Apple TV+ saw a similar increase of $2/month, although it seems like that was always destined to go up in price, as Apple said it launched the TV and movie streaming service at a “very low price” to get people on board when there wasn’t much to watch on the service.

Now, it looks like Google and YouTube are joining the party, with the cost of YouTube Premium rising by $2/month in the US to a total monthly cost of $13.99. The annual plan has seen a similar increase of $20, bringing the total yearly price to $139.99.

Technically, it’s the first time the price for an individual YouTube Premium plan has increased since it launched in 2018. However, YouTube Premium was a rebranding of YouTube Red that saw a price increase after Google rolled in YouTube Music as part of the package.

Family YouTube Premium plans also jumped by $5 last fall, around the same time Apple announced its price increases, bringing the total monthly cost to families up to $22.99/month.

YouTube Music is also seeing a similar price rise to Apple Music, which will now cost $10.99/month in the US. That’s only a $1 monthly bump, slightly increasing the gap between YouTube Music and YouTube Premium. Since YouTube Premium includes all the benefits of YouTube Music, it’s arguably still a better deal, but the higher prices might lead some folks who are more focused on the music side to rethink that.

The new pricing is live now, but according to Reuters, those who subscribed to YouTube Premium five years ago will get “three more months of subscription at the old price.”

So far, the price hike only seems to apply to YouTube Premium and Music subscribers in the US. Prices remain unchanged in Canada, the UK, and other countries where YouTube Premium is available, despite the cost of their family plans also increasing alongside the US last year.

Naturally, the price for subscribing to YouTube Premium within the YouTube app is also increasing to $18.99/month to account for Apple’s 30% App Store commission.

YouTube Premium offers several benefits, perhaps the most significant of which is the removal of ads. Creators of videos watched by Premium subscribers are paid by Google using the subscription fees.

Notably, these price hikes come at a time when YouTube is experimenting with a crackdown on ad blockers, which might encourage more people to pay for a Premium subscription. However, the subscription has additional benefits, including higher 1080p streaming quality, downloads for offline access, and full picture-in-picture support on the iPhone and iPad.

YouTube also recently added the ability for Premium subscribers to co-watch videos in Google Meet, and unlike Apple’s SharePlay, only the meeting host requires a Premium subscription; other participants can watch the video without a membership.