Spotify to hike prices: Can you beat the 2023 increases?

Spotify Premium is going up for the first time. Other tiers increase too.

Get ready to pay more for ad-free listening on Spotify, with an extra quid added to most plans from July 2023, though existing users should get another month or two at the current prices.

Here’s how much you can expect to pay, ways to save money and alternatives.

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New Spotify prices

On 24 July 2023, Spotify announced a series of price increases. These apply straight away to new customers or anyone changing their plans.

PLAN	CURRENT PRICE	NEW PRICE	% increase
Premium	£9.99	£10.99	10%
Duo	£13.99	£14.99	7.1%
Family	£16.99	£17.99	5.9%
Student	£5.99	No change	0%

One month price freeze for existing customers

The announcement by Spotify promised existing subscribers would get one more month at the current prices. The new charges will therefore come in to play from late August or September – depending on when you pay your bill.

For example, my Family pass renewed just a few days ago, so I’ll get this month and another at £16.99. But when it renews in September, I’ll pay the higher £17.99.

However, if you renew in the next few days the likelihood is this will be your last month at the current prices. So that could mean the hike starts for you at the end of August.

Duo and Family plan increases lower than last time

The last Spotify price increase was in April 2021, though Premium wasn’t impacted. When that hike happened, Family went up by 13.3% (£2 a month) and Duo by 7.7% (£1 a month)

The biggest was for Student which though only £1 more represented a 20.1% jump. Fortunately this time Student Spotify remains unchanged.

A new Spotify coming soon?

There are also rumours of a new, more expensive, tier of Spotify on the horizon. I’ve seen a few reports in the last couple of months that a higher quality audio option will launch this year called Spotify HiFi.

You’ll obviously pay more and it probably won’t be worth it for most people, but some audiophiles will no doubt be excited about lossless sound. There’s no official date or price for this yet.

Can you beat the price hike?

Buy a discounted gift card

Unlike some streaming services, there’s no annual plan to lock in prices. However, there are multi-month gift cards available for the individual Spotify Premium.

Though these are billed as “3 months” or “a year”, they also have a value based on the old £9.99 monthly fee. However, Spotify say that these can still be redeemed even if bought at a lower price.

I’d hedge my bets that it’s the length of time, particularly since you can’t use these cards against other Spotify Premium plans.

If you are happy to commit to one year, you’ll save a little more, with a £20 discount (effectively 12 months for the price of 10). Though at the new prices you’ll actually be saving £32.88, or almost three months.

They also be added to existing accounts as long as there’s

Its’ likely these offers will change soon to reflect the new Premium prices, so it makes sense to grab one ASAP.

Sadly they won’t work on other tiers such as Duo and Family.

Share your account

Despite the prices going up on all the different options, the Duo and Family plans are still cheaper than solo accounts – if you live in the same household as the person you are sharing with.

Duo is, as the name suggests, for two people. This new price works out as £7.50 per person (up from £7).

Family is for up to six different accounts. At £17.99, that’s £6 each if there are three of you, down to £3 for six.

You get your own person Spotify account, so you don’t get anyone messing with your algorithm. However they are all paid for by the lead account which means you’ll need to work out how or if you split the bill.

Listen for free

If you are happy with adverts you can use listen to Spotify Free. However you won’t be able to download music to listen to offline or use with a smart speaker.

Alternatives to Spotify

If you aren’t keen on paying more, then you could use this as an opportunity to try a different streaming service. The prices are broadly the same for each service, but if you’re a new customer there are always free trials available.

The length of these vary throughout the year, but it’s usually possible to get at least a month of Tidal, Amazon Music Unlimited, Apple Music and Deezer.

I’ve listed the best offers on my dedicated music streaming deals page.