It seems that a lot of people are enjoying listening to audiobooks on Spotify. I sure am. It’s a fantastic deal since it’s included with Spotify Premium. In fact, the company says: “Since launching Audiobooks in Premium, we’ve seen a 45% increase in free users searching for and interacting with Audiobook content each day.” But what if you don’t have a Premium subscription? It seems that Spotify wants to get those people to sign up, too.
In a blog post, the company announced a new tier of its paid service: Audiobook Access. The new tier is available now to customers in the United States and mixes Spotify’s ad-supported tier with its audiobook service.
While Spotify Premium gets you ad-free music, podcasts, and 15 hours of audiobooks, the free tier only offers ad-supported music and podcasts. This new tier will give subscribers ad-supported music and podcasts as well as 15 hours per month of audiobook listening for $9.99 per month:
Starting today, the Audiobooks Access Tier provides booklovers in the U.S. with 15 hours of listening from our audiobooks catalog of over 200,000 titles for $9.99 a month. With this plan and in one app experience, listeners can continue to tune into music and podcasts on our free, ad-supported service, offering a great option for literary enthusiasts who are looking for more audiobook-specific content.
While that sounds like a great deal, it starts to look worse when you consider that Spotify Premium only costs $1 more at $10.99 per month. I’m all for saving money, but I think most people should just let go of the extra buck and upgrade to Spotify Premium. That’ll get you the same 15 hours per month of audiobook listening on top of never having to deal with ads on your music or podcasts again (at least except for the ads podcasters love to read to us).
I’m all for more options for consumers, but when your one plan costs literally a dollar less than your other plan…why does this thing exist? Just get Premium.
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