Amazon Music Discreetly Hikes Prices on US and UK Unlimited Subscriptions

Trisha Kae Andrada, Tech Times 20 January 2023, 02:01 pm

(Photo : MARTIN BUREAU/AFP via Getty Images)

There has been a little price increase for Amazon Music subscribers.

Amazon's Music Unlimited subscription will cost an additional $1 and £1 in the United States and the United Kingdom, respectively, as of Feb. 21.

Price Hikes

Both the Amazon Music Unlimited Individual Plan and the Amazon Music Unlimited Student Plan are getting more expensive, as reported by TechCrunch. The Individual Plan is going up from $9.99 (£9.99) to $10.99 (£10.99) a month, while the Student Plan will go up from $4.99 (£4.99) to $5.99 (£5.99).

Billboard was the first to discover that the company has updated its prices on its support website.

Amazon said that the pricing changes for certain Amazon Music Unlimited subscriptions would help it provide customers with even more content and benefits.

The Family Plan ($15.99/month) and the Single-Device Plan ($4.99/month) seem to remain stable, despite the price hikes in the individual and student plans.

Notably, the e-commerce titan is now amid a cost-cutting drive.

Before these price hikes, Amazon already announced the recent suspension of its charitable donation program AmazonSmile and decided to lay off 18,000 workers earlier this month.

Amazon Music

Amazon has not increased pricing for customers in a little over eight months.

Starting in May 2022, the regular monthly price of Amazon Music Unlimited for non-Prime members was $8.99, up from $7.99. Members who are not really part of Prime did not see any changes and still had to pay $9.99 monthly.

Meanwhile, for those interested in commercial-free music streaming, Amazon also provides a Prime tier of Amazon Music for no additional cost with the purchase of a Prime membership. A Music Unlimited subscription is required for HD, Ultra HD, and Spatial Audio.

Last October, Amazon Music expanded its Prime music selection from 2 million songs to all 100 million tracks. It also added hundreds of thousands of podcast episodes without ads, including all of Wondery's broadcasts.

Previously, Prime members could stream any of Amazon Music's 2 million songs on-demand, but now they are mostly confined to shuffle-play mode depending on artist, album, or playlist.

In the Music-streaming Industry

After Apple raised the price of its competing music streaming service, Apple Music, by $1 for individual users and $2 for families in the US, Amazon has decided to follow suit. In June 2022, Apple Music raised the price of its student plan in the US, Canada, and the UK without any fanfare.

During an October 2022 earnings call, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said the business was considering increasing membership prices in the US.

According to him, raising costs is something that interests them. "I feel really good about sort of this upcoming year and what that means in pricing in relation to our service."

Given that the firm has kept its regular membership price at $9.99 per month in the US since it launched in 2011, this would be a significant change for the company.