AMAZON has hiked subscription costs for its music streaming service – and there are fears popular rival Spotify could follow suit.
Some plans are going up by £1 / $1 a month on both sides of the Atlantic, squeezing users in the midst of a cost of living crisis.
Spotify is expected to follow with similar raises soonGetty Images – Getty
The price of an Amazon Music Unlimited Individual Plan is going up from £9.99 / $9.99 a month to £10.99 / $10.99.
Meanwhile, the discounted rate for students is also increasing from £4.99 / $4.99 to £5.99 / $5.99 per month.
The new prices will come into effect from February 21, the online retail giant revealed.
There’s no word whether the Family Plan and Single Device Plan will also jump.
But Amazon’s announcement puts prices in line with Apple Music’s recent rises.
And the big gun Spotify could be next.
As The Verge reports, Spotify’s boss Daniel Ek hinted subscribers might have to pay more soon.
In an earnings call in October, he apparently indicated that US price changes “is one of the things we would like to do.”
“If you think in light of our competitors raising prices, that obviously gives us more confidence going into it, too,” he said at the time.
An individual subscription on the platform currently costs $9.99 / £9.99.
And the sites usually have very similar pricing structures, so it’s not unrealistic to imagine costs will surely go up soon.
How to keep costs for music streaming down
Take advantage of family plans if you have other members of your household who also use the same streaming platform as you, this will work out cheaper per person.
Look out for promotions – and even hop between platforms to take advantage of free trials.
If you really want to cut costs, you could drop to the ad-supported plans.
Many of these are completely free to use with ads between each track.
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