Spotify recently put its latest price hike into effect in the US, bringing individual plans from $10.99 up to $11.99. Dual Plans went up to $16.99 ($2 increase), and family plans now cost $19.99 ($3 increase). One of the ways the streaming giant justified the price increase was the introduction of audiobook support to the platform, with premium users now getting 15 hours of audiobook listening per month.
Apparently, Spotify is aware that not everybody is going to care about its audiobook offering, and it is now introducing a new “Basic” plan in the US. It includes unlimited access to music and podcasts without ads for $10.99 a month. So, it’s basically the old Premium plan but with a new name.
There is no denying that this is still a sneaky move since Spotify automatically switched everyone to the more expensive plan and now requires manual intervention to switch back, which many won’t do for one reason or another.
It is worth noting that we are still waiting on yet another even more-expensive Spotify plan that is said to finally introduce lossless Hi-Fi streaming. That plan is expected to cost around $5 more on average. It is meant to bring Spotify’s service more in line with rivals like Apple who already offer their full catalogue in lossless quality. Apple Music does not require extra payment for the extra quality, though.
