Spotify Basic tariff: cheaper than Premium, but only for existing customers
The new Basic tariff is priced below the newly increased Premium tariffs. However, it is only aimed at existing customers.
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Spotify has introduced a new basic subscription model, which has been available in the USA since mid-2024, along with the price increase for premium tariffs. It is only aimed at “selected existing customers” and can only be booked once.
Spotify Basic: Almost premium, only without 12 hours of audiobooks
According to Spotify, the Basic subscriptions are aimed exclusively at existing customers who can do without certain functions. The main difference between “Basic” and “Premium,” apart from the lower price, is the absence of the audiobook offer that was only introduced a few months ago. Unlike Premium, the new Basic subscription does not include monthly audiobook playback time, but individual audiobooks can be purchased. Since April 2025, the Premium offer has included twelve playback hours per month for the audiobook catalog with over 350,000 titles in addition to music and podcasts.
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In addition to audiobooks, the basic offer includes the most important premium functions, such as ad-free music listening, downloads for offline use, the ability to play songs in any order, and high audio quality. According to Spotify, it is also still possible to listen to music abroad.
Prices of the Basic tariffs
The prices of the new Basic tariffs should be familiar to Premium customers. This is because Spotify charges €10.99 per month for individuals, which is the same price as the Premium subscription before the current price increase. The same applies to the other options “Basic Duo” and “Basic Family”: they cost 14.99 and 17.99 euros, respectively. Spotify does not offer a basic plan for students. They can choose between the free, ad-financed plan or the discounted Premium plan of 6.99 euros.
For comparison, since August 14, Spotify has been charging 12.99 euros (Individual), 17.99 euros (duo), and 21.99 euros (family) for the Premium plans with audiobook option. Premium customers who agree to the price increase will not have to pay the higher prices until November 15.
One-off offer
As Spotify explains, the Basic offer is aimed exclusively at existing customers and is not available to all users. Only authorized users will see the offer on the website after logging in.
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Interested parties should also be aware that they can only switch to the basic tariffs once. If they cancel the Basic subscription, they cannot subscribe to it again. For customers who have not yet made use of the audiobook offer included in the Premium tariff, switching to Basic should be a sensible option to avoid the price increase – at least until Spotify increases the price again.
(afl)
