YouTube Premium hiked the price of its monthly subscription by 17% Thursday, increasing the service’s monthly tag to $13.99 for U.S. users, effective immediately. That’s a $2 jump from where it was previously.
Additionally, annual subscriptions to YouTube Premium are also getting bumped up, going from $119.99 to $139.99.
YouTube Music Premium is also experiencing a price increase amid the changes, going from $9.99 to $10.99 per month. While this is in line with the pricing changes Amazon and Apple have made to their competing services, it leaves Spotify as a holdout at $9.99, though that’s likely to change soon enough.
“We’re updating the price for YouTube Premium and YouTube Music Premium subscribers in the U.S. to continue delivering great service and features,” a YouTube spokesperson told TheWrap. “We believe this new price reflects the value of YouTube Premium, which allows subscribers to enjoy ad-free YouTube with background and offline play and uninterrupted access to over 100 million songs with the YouTube Music app.”
YouTube quietly released these pricing changes without fanfare, updating their services’ landing pages to reflect the new numbers. These updated pages were first spotted by 9to5google.
According to YouTube, the changed pricing will take effect in subscribers’ next billing cycle. There’s an exception for members who subscribed half a decade ago; those who’ve been onboard for five years are entitled to three extra months at the lower price. YouTube will be sending out emails to subscribers to inform them of the change.
This isn’t the only shakeup to its platform that YouTube has initiated in recent times. Last month, it revamped its misinformation policy to allow for election fraud content. Before that, YouTube had been removing certain content pertaining to claims that Joe Biden stole the 2020 U.S. presidential election from Donald Trump.
Now, ahead of the 2024 presidential election, YouTube has changed its stance, stating that removing misinformation hasn’t had a meaningful impact on reducing the risk of real-world harm.
