Spotify Free vs. Spotify Premium vs. Spotify Premium for Family
Nothing in life is free, and this is especially true of music.
Spotify's free tier tries to cut most of these strings while you're on a computer, allowing you to play your music in the order you want with fewer ads. That said, those strings are still dangling, and they tangle and strangle free users on mobile devices.
Spotify Premium can be worth every penny on Android, but how many pennies you shell out depends on which plan you use.
Spotify Free
- Access to over 30 million songs, curated playlists, algorithm-based radio stations and mixes, and podcasts while within the country
- Ads when you open the app and during playback
- Shuffle Play only on Android (no listening to albums in order)
- No offline music
- Basic sound quality
Spotify Free comes with some strings, but if you're a casual listener who primarily listens through the web player — or listens on shuffle anyway — Spotify Free can be tolerable.
Bless you for your saintly patience with those ads, especially the inescapable ad offering you a 30 day trial of Spotify Premium.
Spotify Premium
- No ads
- Play your songs/albums/playlists/mixes when and how you want
- Download up to 3,333 songs for offline playback on up to 3 devices
- Access to over 30 million songs, curated playlists, algorithm-based radio stations and mixes, and podcasts even while traveling outside the country
- Control your music quality when downloading or streaming for high-quality sound or data-conscious playback
- Listen to your music on other devices through Spotify Connect
Spotify Premium cuts the strings that held back Spotify Free users, allowing you to take full advantage of Spotify's library and masterful mixes. If you're looking to get Premium but want to avoid the monthly charge, consider investing in some Spotify gift cards, which you can keep as a balance on your account Spotify will burn through before it charges your card again. They also make good gifts for the Spotify users in your life.
Spotify Student
If you can prove you're a college student, you can enroll in Spotify Student, which now gives you access to both Spotify Premium and Hulu for $4.99 a month. Congrats! Here are some things to keep in mind:
- The Spotify Student subscription is ad-free, but the Hulu subscription is not, as it's the "Limited Commercials" subscription, such as the one you'd get for $7.99 as a non-student
- You can be asked to re-verify your student status whenever Spotify asks, and if you can't, you'll lose the Hulu subscription and be bumped up to a regular Spotify Premium account
- Spotify Student does eventually run out, and if you're not attentive to Spotify's emails and notifications, you could be bumped to a Spotify Premium plan without a chance to cancel or extend your student pricing
Spotify Student is one of Spotify's crown jewels, as many, many, many Student users are willing to be bumped to Premium accounts once they lose the discount because they get hooked on Spotify's library and features.
Spotify Premium for Family
Now people can share Netflix and HBO subscriptions all the livelong day, but you can't do that with Spotify, even Spotify Premium. If you're playing something on the web player and someone opens the Android app, it's going to ask you if you want to stop listening on the web and start listening on Android. So what if you have three or four people in your house that want to listen to Spotify? That's where Premium for Family comes in:
- See one $14.99 a month bill for up to 6 Premium accounts at the same address
- Everyone gets their own Spotify Premium account, so no one's playlists interfere with anyone else's algorithmic recommendations
This sounds like a sweet deal, and you can see savings even with two members, so why doesn't everyone use a Premium for Family account? Well, here's what you need to be wary of before you try to sign up for one:
- Everyone in your family plan has to be able to be verified as living at the same address. Per Spotify's FAQ: "If we're unable to verify the members of a Premium for Family plan, they are removed from the plan."
- You cannot change the address of a Premium for Family plan, meaning if you move, the only way to quickly get a new Premium for Family plan is to delete your account, make a new account at your new address, and start your library over. Yikes.
- You cannot use any specials with a Premium for Family plan. It cannot be combined with the Spotify-Sprint deal, nor can you use gift cards to pay for them.
If you join a Premium for Family plan that falls through, you can revert to a singular Premium plan, but you won't be able to join another Family plan for 12 months.
If all of this sounds like a bit of a pain, there's always Google Play Music + YouTube Red or Apple Music family plans, which don't care what addresses you're registered at.
What made you go Premium?
What tipped the scales for you to upgrade to Spotify Premium? Was it retaking control of your playlists or unlocking high-quality streaming? Did the Student or Family discount sway you towards their particular plans? Let us know - and let us know what you're listening to!
