Apple Music has grow to be one of many high music streaming services globally, second solely to Spotify, offering subscribers entry to over 100 million songs, curated playlists, and unique content material. Since its launch in 2015, Apple Music has persistently grown its library and options, seamlessly integrating with the broader Apple ecosystem to ship a high-quality consumer expertise. It has grow to be a preferred selection for music lovers and a robust competitor to different streaming platforms.
Apple Music’s pricing construction is an important a part of its market technique, aiming to stability affordability with its worth proposition to draw a variety of customers, catering to people, households, and college students.
Right here’s how a lot every Apple Music plan prices:
- $11 per 30 days for an Particular person plan
- $6 per 30 days for a Pupil plan
- $17 per 30 days for a Household plan
When you can join a free trial of Apple Music, in case you keep on with the service lengthy sufficient, you will find yourself paying. Nevertheless, Verizon limitless plan prospects have a means round this, as they get Apple Music completely free — extra on this later.
Let’s take a better take a look at what you get with every Apple Music plan.
Apple Music plans
Earlier than we dive additional into the completely different pricing tiers Apple Music has to supply, observe that every subscription plan provides entry to the identical catalog of ad-free content material, offline listening, Apple Music 1 stay and on-demand radio reveals, and unique releases.
Apple Music provides you streaming entry to:
The primary distinction between the plans comes within the type of the Family membership (extra on that in a bit), which helps you to create as much as six particular person accounts in a subscription that’s billed as one flat price per 30 days — no matter how many individuals you add on.
Apple Music Particular person — $11/month
Please take into account the next info. Apple Music doesn’t supply a free plan. If you’re not eligible for reductions, essentially the most fundamental choice is the Particular person subscription, which prices $11 per 30 days. Apple additionally supplies the choice to pay $109 upfront for a yr’s price of service, which is a $23 low cost. Nevertheless, it’s advisable to check this with different subscriptions, as mentioned later in our Spotify comparisons. It’s price noting that the discounted annual plan will not be seen till after signing up for the month-to-month plan after which checking the subscriptions.
Apple Music Pupil Subscription — $6/month
Simply like Spotify, Apple Music provides all college students (with a sound scholar e-mail handle from a supported academic establishment) half-off an Apple Music membership. That drops the month-to-month subscription fee right down to a modest $6. The supply is offered just for faculty college students presently.
Apple Music Household Subscription — $17/month
Trying to enroll as much as six folks in your family in an Apple Music plan? Subscribe to the Apple Music Household plan for $17 per 30 days. That works out to a complete financial savings of $5 per 30 days for 2 members, $15 for 3, $25 for 4, $35 for 5, and $45 for six relations.
Apple One
You even have the choice to decide on an Apple One plan, which mixes a number of of Apple’s companies into a number of tiers of single discounted fee plans. That features not solely Apple Music however Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, iCloud+, Information+ and extra. Apple hiked the prices of these plans in October of this yr, although. Particular person Apple One plans now begin at $20 per 30 days and include 50GB of iCloud storage, Apple Music, and Arcade, whereas the Apple One Household plan begins at $26 per 30 days and provides as much as 5 members and 200GB of iCloud storage. You too can join a Premier plan that provides Apple Health+ and Apple Information+ to the combo, in addition to a whopping 3TB of iCloud storage, for $38 per 30 days. These choices might supply quite a lot of worth in case you use different Apple companies together with Apple Music.
Apple Music with Verizon
Verizon Unlimited customers can get a six-month Particular person membership to Apple Music at no cost. To qualify, you should be signed up for an eligible Verizon Limitless Plan. After six months, the price of Apple Music might be $11 per 30 days per line. With this subscription, you’ll have entry to the Apple Music library, the power to obtain songs for offline playback, and the choice to stream your favourite songs over 5G, 4G LTE, or Wi-Fi.
Verizon as soon as supplied free Apple Music subscriptions to sure prospects by its 5G Get Extra plan. Nevertheless, this plan is now not out there to new prospects. If you have already got this plan, you’ll be able to nonetheless obtain a free Apple Music subscription.
Apple Music with discounted Apple Reward Playing cards
When you take a look at fee choices for Apple Music subscriptions, you’ll see that you should use Apple Reward Playing cards, to pay for Apple Music and pretty much everything else Apple. This opens up a brand new methodology to avoid wasting in your subscription by paying for it with discounted Apple Reward Playing cards. The secret’s discovering them, although.
You’ll be able to search for particular retailer offers, like Greatest Purchase’s supply to purchase Apple Reward Playing cards. Typically, there might be a special promo that will include Apple Music free for four months with the gift card.
Apple Music free offers for brand spanking new patrons
When you’re a brand new Apple Music subscriber, you must attempt to discover offers that provide you with free months when signing up as a brand new consumer, buying particular merchandise, and so forth. These offers can differ over time, however a few of the high present examples embody:
- Greatest Purchase is providing a deal for up to three months, which new or returning subscribers (they get three months) are eligible for once they begin Apple Music. The one factor you should get this deal is a Greatest Purchase account.
- Apple additionally continues to supply free subscriptions often for brand spanking new patrons of merchandise like Macs or iPhones, as they did with Apple TV+ when it made its debut.
- Shopping for newer Apple headphones (AirPods, AirPods Professional, AirPods Max, or Beats) or HomePod or HomePod mini qualifies new subscribers for six months of free Apple Music. Older generations, equivalent to first-generation AirPods and a few Beats fashions, usually are not eligible.
How Apple Music compares to the competitors
Spotify not solely has the lead over Apple Music when it comes to global reach, however in the USA, it resumes its lead over Apple Music with its 239 million Premium subscribers worldwide (as of Q1 2024), in comparison with Apple’s 93 million as of June 2023. However nonetheless, Apple is certainly not a slouch, providing 100 million songs, 30,000 playlists, and best-in-class human-run radio stations together with different unique content material, giving it an in depth fan base in America.
Music and podcast choice
Spotify reigns king over Apple with regards to its enhanced music-discovery instruments, however its library is considerably extra restricted (though that distinction is narrowing). Many eclectic music lovers will recognize Apple Music’s broader catalog. Whereas Apple has unique releases and stay radio stations, Spotify tends to have extra in style podcasts and has been pushing human-curated playlist content material to counter Apple’s stay stations. Each companies additionally enable for any streaming monitor to be downloaded offline for later listening.
Some really feel that Apple’s playlists are a bit extra in-depth and customized than Spotify’s and different main streamers equivalent to Amazon Music or YouTube Music, which, if we’re sincere, each form of take quite a lot of pages from Spotify’s design playbook. Apple Music’s 2021 replace added a whole bunch of recent human-curated playlists for moods and actions, making it rather a lot simpler to discover a playlist for absolutely anything, from dinner events to a inventive drawing session to snowboarding. Apple additionally added enhanced Siri skills whenever you inform the assistant, “Play extra like this.”
Free model
Of the 2 high opponents, Spotify stays the one one with a free model out there, which nonetheless permits customers to play on-demand tracks (with some limitations on cell units however none on desktop) in alternate for advertisements. That makes it a straightforward selection in case you don’t need to pay something to your music service. Apple Music used to have its $5 per 30 days Voice choice as its least costly, however the firm axed it. Amazon Music Free, Deezer, and YouTube Music additionally supply free, ad-based choices as nicely.
Sound high quality
If audio format and high quality are vital to you, Apple is clearly on the head of the pack when in comparison with Spotify, whose long-rumored hi-res tier remains to be a no-show. That mentioned, Apple Music is now not one of many few hi-res lossless video games on the town, with just about each different service, together with Tidal, Amazon Music Limitless, Qobuz, and Deezer providing lossless audio, which begins at CD high quality (16-bit at 44.1kHz) and goes up from there relying on the service. If it is a game-changer for you, right here’s how all of them examine:
- Apple Music: AAC, ALAC codecs at as much as 24-bit/192kHz, in addition to Dolby Atmos Music
- Tidal HiFi: AAC, ALAC, FLAC codecs at 16-bit/44.1kHz (HiFi) and 24-bit/96kHz (HiFi Plus), in addition to Dolby Atmos Music.
- Deezer Premium: FLAC format at as much as 16-bit/44.1kHz
- Qobuz: AIFF, ALAC, FLAC, WAV, WMA Lossless codecs at as much as 24-bit/192kHz
Regularly Requested Questions
What’s the most affordable solution to get Apple Music?
The most affordable solution to get Apple Music is to utilize its free trial supply: you may get one month free by signing up straight with Apple Music. Lastly, shopping for new Apple headphones qualifies new subscribers for six months of free Apple Music.
Is Apple Music actually free for 3 months?
Sure, you actually can get three months of Apple Music at no cost. While you purchase a brand new iPhone, AirPod, HomePod, or Beats product, the corporate will throw in 3 months of its streaming service in at no cost. You should utilize your free subscription to stream Apple Music throughout all of your units.
