Your Monthly Spotify Bill Is About To Go Up

Spotify subscribers in Australia will need to reach a little deeper into their pockets after the music streaming giant lifted the “Premium” price point.

The Sweden-based tech company has sent emails to millions of subscribers, a heads-up that their Spotify bill will be increased from the next billing cycle.

From this month, individual “Premium” subscribers will be paying an extra $2 per month, from $13.99 to $15.99, a hike of about 14%.

Australians are not alone.

“Over the next month, Premium subscribers in multiple markets across South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Latin America, and the Asia-Pacific region will receive an email explaining what this update means for their subscriptions,” reads a statement.

That follows a lift in 2023, which saw the price for premium accounts lift from $11.99 to $12.99 per month. And another incremental gain last year, to $13.99.

Spotify arrived in Australia on May 22, 2012, initially offering a free ad-supported product, along with paid offerings of $6.99 for Spotify Unlimited (ad-free, but mobile-limited) and $11.99 for Spotify Premium, the all-you-can eat service across devices.

Though the new price will be a nuisance for those consumers struggling under the growing cost of everyday goods and services, it’ll come as music to the ears of the record industry, which has coveted a hiked subscription fee, for the reward of hundreds of millions in instant, additional revenue.

The recording industry, however, is in no position to tell Spotify, a third-party partner, what to charge its customers.

Price adjustments are just part of doing business, Spotify Co-President and Chief Business Officer Alex Norström told the Financial Times, and are have become “part of our toolbox”.

One of those territories, Australia, welcomes half the population to its app every month, Mikaela Lancaster, Spotify’s managing director of Australia and New Zealand, told TMN during SXSW Sydney 2023.

Norström and Spotify’s top brass are confident of, one day, passing one billion Premium subscribers. “Over a quarter of a billion subscribers are currently paying us every month and just using us more and more,” he tells the FT.