Spotify, once a neat novelty, is now an industry giant and
one of the big three music streaming providers; alongside Google Play Music and
Apple Music. If you’ve been using Spotify’s free plan to stream music, you know
it carries a sleek interface, tons of music, and extra audio content that’s not
music.
You’ve probably wondered whether paying for Spotify Premium
is worth a monthly subscription or if you’re better off sticking to the free
plan to save money. Let’s look at what each tier offers, and decide if Spotify
Premium is worth the extra investment.
What Spotify have to offer?
In desktop, you won’t feel too limited by Spotify Free; Free
lets you choose any artist, album, playlist, or song that you’d like to listen
to and rock out to it as much as you like. Aside from the adverts every few
songs, you won’t feel like huge parts of Spotify are locked away behind a
paywall when using Free. If you’re into social features, you’ll have full
access to song sharing and checking out what your friends are listening to.
On mobile, things get a bit more restrictive. Using an
iPhone or Android device, you’ll still have access to the Spotify catalog, but
you’ll be forced to listen to everything in Shuffle mode. That means if you
want to listen to an album all the way through, you’re out of luck without
Premium.
However, if you’re on an iPad or Android tablet, you’ll
enjoy the same on-demand access to music as on the desktop. Of course, ads will
still be present, but you’ll be able to choose any playlist or album and listen
to it without shuffling.
When you’re using Spotify Free, you’ll need to be online to
listen to music — so no listening in airplane mode to save data.
Upgrading to premium
Upgrading to Spotify Premium for $10/month is where Spotify
really shines. Premium is the only paid tier that Spotify offers these days;
the middle-ground Unlimited tier was phased out a few years ago when mobile
became much more popular. With Premium, all ads are removed on every platform,
so you don’t have to deal with audio ads every couple of tracks. This also
removes the visual ads in the player, making the Spotify app a much cleaner
experience.
Aside from removing the ads, Premium also unlocks full access
on your mobile devices, meaning you can listen to any song at any time on your
phone in the same way that you listen on your desktop or laptop. Since you’re
not limited by having to shuffle songs anymore, you can also skip tracks to
your heart’s content — this applies to the Radio feature too, if you like using
that.
f you’re listening to Spotify with quality speakers or
headphones, you’ll also enjoy the high-quality streaming that Premium offers.
By default, the player runs at 160 Kbps on desktop; Premium allows you to up
this to 320 Kbps, which is about the best compression rate you can actually
hear.
For mobile, Normal quality is 96 Kbps, High quality is 160
Kbps, and Extreme quality is 320 Kbps. The lower default is to help reduce data
usage; Free users can select Normal or High, but only Premium lets you select
Extreme on mobile.
Premium’s other huge benefit is offline listening, which
allows you to save up to 3,333 songs each on three different devices. Any album
or playlist can be saved for offline listening, and you can select the quality
(same as the above) in which to save the music. The caveat is that you must go
online once every 30 days to keep your offline music valid — this is just a
check so that Spotify knows you’re still a Premium member.
Finally, Premium allows you to use Spotify Connect, which
controls Spotify music across multiple devices. With Connect, you can control
what’s playing on your laptop using your smartphone, or pair Spotify with
dedicated hardware, such as speakers and cars. This is a great feature for
controlling the tunes at a party and makes for seamless transitions between
listening on your phone and computer.
Of course, Spotify Premium carries all the great extras that
Free includes, like the Year in Music and the amazing Discover Weekly playlists
that help you find new music.
Pricing Options
There are a couple of different ways to get access to
Premium without paying $10/month. First, if you’re a student (with proof), you
can get Premium for $5/month (half off) using Spotify Student. Keep an eye out
for Spotify’s promotions, too — they often offer three months of Premium for
just $1, but these only apply for users who have never tried Premium before.
There’s also a 30-day free trial of Premium that you can
check out anytime to see if it’s for you, but know that Spotify will
automatically renew the subscription after that time. Head into your account
settings to shut that off so you aren’t charged if you decide Spotify isn’t
right for you.
It’s important to note that if you’re an Apple user, do not
subscribe to Premium through the app on iOS. Apple takes a cut of every in-app
purchase from the App Store, so Premium is $13/month instead of $10 if you buy
it through your iPhone. Avoid this ridiculous charge and use Spotify’s website
to upgrade if you choose to do so.
If you’re a PlayStation gamer, you can also take advantage
of Spotify’s two months for $2 deal, which is exclusive to users of Spotify on
PS3 or PS4. Spotify replaced the dated PlayStation Music a while back, and it
fits in nicely on Sony’s systems. On the PS4, you’re even able to play music
from Spotify while playing a game — which is perfect for titles with built-in
tracks that you’ve gotten sick of hearing.
With a Family Plan, it becomes an even more attractive deal.
Even with just two or three people, paying $7.50/month or $5/month is an
awesome deal for unlimited music streaming.
If you use Spotify with any frequency during the month,
Spotify Premium is an absolutely awesome investment. For the price of one album
per month, you get high-quality music (no more listening off YouTube and
dealing with crappy uploads), the ability to save offline music to your phone
for when you’re on-the-go (which could pay for itself), and no ads to interrupt
the party.
sources:-https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/worth-upgrading-spotify-premium/
http://www.hypebot.com
https://www.spotify.com/my-en/premium/
http://moneyning.com
https://www.rappler.com
https://www.express.co.uk
https://www.express.co.uk
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