Unveiling Spotify’s Latest Hidden Tier: The Mysterious New Elite Subscription

Spotify just raised the prices of its Premium, Duo, and Family plans in the United States. Now, the company is rolling out a new cheaper plan option: Spotify Basic.

Spotify announced a new plan for “eligible U.S. subscribers,” called Spotify Basic. It mostly works the same as Spotify Premium, with offline support, ad-free music listening, and unlimited skips. The only difference is that it does not include monthly audiobook listening time, and costs $10.99/month instead of $11.99/month.

Audiobooks are still somewhat new to Spotify. They first rolled out in 2023, and an audiobook-only subscription for $9.99/month was introduced back in March. Most people signed up for Spotify probably don’t care about the audiobooks, or don’t even know they are there, so making a slightly cheaper tier without that feature is great.

There’s one catch: Spotify Basic isn’t one of the plans you can choose from when upgrading a free account. It’s not listed on the plans page alongside Individual, Student, Duo, or Family. It seems like the only way to get Basic is to downgrade from an existing individual Premium plan. At least for now, it’s a hidden option that serves as a last-ditch effort from Spotify to stop you from fully unsubscribing to Premium—a bit like how Adobe will give customers a discount on some Creative Cloud subscriptions when they try to cancel.

There’s also a new Basic Family plan, according to 9to5Google, which is also not listed on the plans page. It works like the $19.99/month Spotify Premium Family plan, but it doesn’t have included audiobooks and has a lower $16.99/month price.

Spotify is also rumored to be working on a new higher-cost premium plan , which would include access to high-fidelity audio, like Tidal’s HiFi Plus and Apple Music’s lossless audio . According to Bloomberg, the plan will be released later in 2024, and will reportedly cost “at least $5 more per month.”

Hopefully, Spotify Basic will eventually become a regular plan option, instead of a hidden option only accessible to some customers. Spotify really wants you to spend more money, though, so that doesn’t seem likely right now.

Source: Spotify , 9to5Google

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