Music streaming giant Spotify has increased its prices with monthly prices going up from £9.99 to £10.99 from late August. The Duo and Family subscriptions will also rise by £1 per month.
It means you will be paying £12 more a year.
If you’re on a student plan, you’re in luck as the subscription will stay priced at £5.99 per month.
But with some music streaming apps free or cheaper to use, now is a good time to review how you listen to your favourite tunes. Here’s how to cut the costs and beat Spotify’s price hike.
Free trials of music streaming apps
Most of the big streaming services will offer you a free trial as long as you’re signing up for the first time. This is usually for one month. But from time to time you might be able to find extended trials of up to three months. These deals come and go so you might need to search around for the latest offers or check a site like becleverwithyourcash.com.
If you’re happy to mix and match different services, you could even get up to a year of free trials. Here are our best picks.
Amazon Music Unlimited | £10.99 month | 3 months free trial (4 months for Prime members)
Amazon Music Unlimited is offering new subscribers 3 months free until 13 July 2023 – 4 months if you’re a Prime member. After 3 months are over, you pay £10.99 per month and Amazon Prime members pay £8.99 per month unless you cancel. You can’t sign up if you are already taking advantage of another free trial offer.
Apple Music | £10.99 month | One month free trial
Apple Music offers lossless streaming and spatial audio support at no extra cost — it has also launched Apple Music sessions with exclusive live performances to take on Spotify Sessions.
And there is an extended free trial: six months if you buy Apple Beats, HomePod or AirPods
Spotify Premium | £9.99 month | One month free trial
Spotify has a library of more than 70 million songs and around 2.6 million podcast titles. It also offers exclusive live tracks via its Spotify sessions.
And you can get an extended free trial: three months free Spotify via PayPal
Tidal | £9.99 month | 30 day free trial
Tidal is a popular choice for audiophiles. Offering high-end sound quality with a library of more than 90 million songs. It even has a premium membership costing £19.99 per month that boasts “innovative high-res audio formats”.
YouTube Music | £9.99 month | One month free trial
YouTube music replaces Google Play Music offering more than 70 million songs and exclusive live performances, covers, remixes and other music content. There’s also a YouTube Premium 3-month trial promotion only open to participants in the UK who have activated a Google One account by 31 July 2023.
Deezer Premium | £11.99 month | On month free trial
High Fidelity audio but at a more premium price. Deezer claims its AI-powered ‘Flow’ feature serves up an infinite mix of all your favourites and new discoveries based on your mood.
It’s only £8.99 per month if you choose to pay annually.
Best free music streaming apps
You don’t have to pay extra to listen to music online. There are some free options with some of the major services, along with a number of online radio players. However there are restrictions, and you might not be able to choose which song you want to listen to. There’s also likely to be adverts interrupting your listening experience.
Here are the best free music streaming options:
Spotify | Free
You get access to Spotify’s huge library of songs but you can’t download any music to your phone, most playlists are shuffle play only and adverts play every few songs.
Deezer | Free
You get access to Deezer’s huge library of songs but you can’t download any music to your phone, and you can only pick playlists, not individual tracks. Adverts play every few songs.
Soundcloud | Free
You get access to exclusive tracks and mixes from the artists but there is a limited catalogue. You can’t download to your phone and adverts play every few songs.
Amazon Prime Music | Free with Prime
Free if you already pay for Amazon Prime (£7.99 a month), you get access to the full library of 100 million songs that you get with a full Amazon Music Unlimited subscription but you can’t pick and play them or listen offline.
How to cut the cost of streaming music
Pay for a year Some services allow you to pay upfront for a year, which will normally be something like 12 months for the price of 10. If you know you will absolutely keep listening to a single service then these can be worth it. But once you’re paid up you won’t get a refund.
Pick a family plan for your household Premium plans are great for an individual, but they are difficult to share – especially if more than one person wants to listen to something different at the same time. You can of course buy a membership each, but that gets very expensive.
Instead, all the major services offer a Family plan, giving you access to up to five or six accounts for one price, as long as you share an address with the other users.
The savings vary, with these plans costing between £15 and £18 a month:
- Apple (£14.99 a month)
- Amazon (£14.99)
- Deezer (£16.99 a month)
- Spotify (£16.99 a month)
- Tidal (£14.99 a month)
- Spotify also has a Duo plan, which as the name suggests is two accounts for a single price of £13.99.
Streaming vs downloading: which is cheaper?
Streaming: with streaming, you are listening live – so if your internet connection drops or you’re in a black spot, the service will stop working.
Also, you’ll need to be careful if you’re streaming from your mobile phone and you’re not connected to wi-fi. Your data allowance can get eaten up quickly if you’re not careful and extra data is expensive.
Downloading: most apps let you download tracks to your phone. You store a copy of the song on your device which will only be temporary – you’ll need to connect to the internet again to keep listening, usually once every 30 days to ensure you still have an account.
If you frequently use your mobile phone downloading can prevent you from racking up a huge data bill by downloading tracks to your phone while you’re on wi-fi, and then turning off the app’s access to data within your phone’s settings.
