For many global customers, the cost of streaming their favorite music on Spotify is about to have a bigger impact on their wallets.
The music streaming service announced that it's raising the monthly price of a premium subscription for markets in South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Latin America, and the Asia-Pacific region. The price change will vary based on each region's local currency, but in Euro-using countries, a premium subscription will go up 1 euro a month to 11.99 euros ($13.87), and in the United Kingdom, it will go up by one pound a month.
The price for US-based subscribers will not go up -- for now at least. That likely won't last -- the company raised the price by a dollar in 2023 and another dollar in 2024. It now costs $12.
In its announcement Monday, Spotify said it was introducing the price increase "so that we can continue to innovate on our product offerings and features, and bring you the best experience."
Stuart Dredge, head of insight at Music Ally and co-host of The Price of Music podcast, calledi it "a positive move" after years of subscription price stagnation.Â
"More money coming in means more being paid out, which is good for artists and songwriters — even with all the arguments still going on about how that money is shared out," Dredge said. "Personally, £11.99 a month still feels like good value for the entire catalog of recorded music, especially when you compare it to the streaming video world."
The announcement gave a shot in the arm to Spotify's share price during Monday's trading, with a nearly 7% increase in the stock price at the NYSE. The share price had dropped 11.5% on July 29 after the company's profit forecast fell below what analysts had predicted.
Music streaming remains a huge business
Spotify retains a comfortable market share lead among music streaming apps. By the end of 2024, the Sweden-based app was No. 1 with a nearly 32 percent market share, followed far behind by Tencent, Apple, Amazon and YouTube. One-third of the music streaming market is in North America,and the US market is expected to grow by 13% by 2030.
A representative for Luminate, a music and entertainment data and analytics company, said that music streams reached nearly 5 trillion globally in 2024.Â
"Our 2025 Midyear Music Report shows continued streaming growth, but the rate has slowed compared to recent years," said a Luminate spokesperson. "Instead, there is an appetite for more innovation and new areas of music discovery from music listeners.
"Whether it's streaming activity on gaming platforms or attitudes towards AI-generated content, younger listeners are more open to non-traditional and transmedia engagement," the spokesperson added. "That should be a sign that opportunities for growth are shifting, not decreasing."