iTunes variable pricing goes live

By on Apr 7, 2009 at 9:40 AM
Retail April 7, 2009

Things like this happen in three stages: 1) You find out it’s going to happen. 2) You curse Apple. 3) You accept the fact that Apple is king when it comes to making money and cough up the extra cash. Masked as part of a trade off with major labels to facilitate DRM-free iTunes tracks, Apple announced back in January that it would introduce a new variable pricing structure where tracks would be $0.69, $0.99 or $1.29 depending on popularity. Today, the new tiered pricing has gone live. As you can see above, it apparently doesn’t take much for some tracks to hit the $1.29 price point — track two has its popularity indicator just over half full and it’s already there. For some however, the new pricing model could be a good thing. The super cool loners among you who are into niche genres like uber-unsing-emo-screamo-core, may find your monthly iTunes bills dropping thanks to the new $0.69 tier for less popular music. Good luck though; even the most obscure bands and tracks we dug up in a few minutes of searching were listed at $0.99 despite having no bars in the popularity column. Anyone find a $0.69 track? Let us know in the comments section.

Thanks, James!

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38 Comments

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  • peterrabbit

    @Ilias. The point I was trying to make is I-Tunes-Apple is being greedy and is certainly not deserving of my business while Amazon and others are not as yet. IMHO Apple products are overrated and over priced anyway. I can’t draw you a better picture than that.

  • Ed Anger

    Zach Epstein and basically just about all of you above, you are idiots. Who do you think is behind the change in the pricing? Apple? NO. It’s the content owners, namely the cartel we call the RECORD COMPANIES. They must be laughing at all of you for blaming Apple and giving them a pass. If you recall, the record companies were playing hardball with Apple, threatening to pull out from the iTunes Store. Apple fought this, but realized that the record companies do have this one upper hand.

    So instead of blaming Apple, who had fought to keep prices down for years, vent your spleens at the fat comb-overs who run the record companies. And please, get your facts straight. You guys are such tards…

  • http://www.gadgetsteria.com Mike

    Outstanding. The record labels have no damn idea what the consumer wants. They’re so out of touch with reality it’s pathetic. Thanks for making my choice concerning pirating that much easier Mr. Music Label Exec. I hope you choke on your $5k champagne assholes

    Posted from BGR Mobile (iPhone).

  • mike!

    Ripping cds ftw!

  • Ahoy

    I want to know who these people are that actually buy music? Christ I haven’t bought a cd or paid for music since the mid 90′s. Presently have around 3tb of storage and pretty much as releases are pre’d I have them. Its not even difficult to find anything you want be it torrent / ftp / mirc / usenet. Spend your money on a usenet account and you’ll thank yourself.

    I support artists by attending concerts. This whole thing would be profitable again if they offered content / exclusives outside of the music. I’d pay a couple bucks for good quality album covers.

    Every artist knows the power of social media now as well viral marketing to their fans. Selling of music is dead outside of the noobs who enjoy iTunes as it’s click to buy and click to sync.

  • Econokid

    Anyone else notice that the top songs no longer have the ringtone icon on them. A few do but none of the 1.29 ones do. The 69 cent songs don’t either. I also looked under the top ringtones and none of them are 1.29. Is it possible that one part of the deal was a restructuring of ringtones or that maybe an aggreement on ringtones wasn’t made before today and apple had to pull them. Just wanted to see if anyone else thought this odd.

  • John Appleseed

    The day I tried to live by Soundgarden is $.69.

    Thats the only one i found though…

  • Benji

    APPLE SUCKS!!! well just their prices… i am gonna stop buying music until they lower them. apple is gonna lose in the end… plus with all the FREE downloading apps why dont just start steeling it…

  • Bob

    It’s been announced and reported several times since January, so I’m surprised this author didn’t know. The pricing isn’t based on the “popularity” of the song at all, at least not how popular the song is on iTunes. It’s based entirely on the wholesale price of the track the music company charges Apple.

    If the label charges a lower price, it’s less expensive on iTunes. If the label charges more, it’s more expensive on iTunes. Simple as that.

  • Jim Philips

    I don’t blame Apple for the price increases. Those were pushed on them by the recording companies. I do blame them for holding on to DRM for longer than necessary. That was a blatant attempt to lock people into their devices. It made it nearly impossible for me to play their music files on my Linux box or on a non-Apple PMP. For that reason, I dropped iTunes as soon as I could get a decent selection from Amazon.

  • russd

    Avast matey! Let fly the Jolly Roger! There be pirating to do…..

  • Lauren

    okay i looked up the artist “A” just for kicks and ONE of their albums is 69 cents but that’s the only 69cent songs i’ve seen…EVER

  • Lauren

    haha the only 69cent kanye song WOULD be a religious song. the media’s freakin facist

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