Apple earlier this week raised the prices across various subscriptions, including individual, family, and annual plans. Going forward, your Apple Music, Apple TV Plus, and Apple One subscriptions will have higher price tags no matter how you pay for them. The move annoyed some consumers, who might not be happy about spending more money on some of the Apple services they need.
However, I’m about to take the unpopular side in all of this and tell you that the price hikes aren’t unwarranted. They’re not unreasonable, and you shouldn’t cancel anything just because you have to pay slightly more for Apple Music, Apple TV Plus, and Apple One services. And you can still save money by rethinking your payment strategy.
The new Apple subscription prices
Apple’s price hikes for its subscriptions amount to $1 to $3 more per month compared to what you were paying, as you’ll see below:
- Individual: $10.99 instead of $9.99
- Family: $16.99 instead of $14.99
- Annual: $109 instead of $99
- You’ll pay between $10 and $24 more per year for this subscription
- Monthly: $6.99 instead of $4.99
- Annual: $69 instead of 49.99
- You’ll pay between $20 and $24 more per year for this subscription
- Individual: $16.95 instead of $14.95
- Family: $22.95 instead of $19.95
- Annual: $32.95 instead of $29.95
- You’ll pay between $24 and $36 more per year for this subscription
Why it makes sense
Seeing the company hike the price of its subscription services isn’t a surprise in this economy, where costs for all other goods have increased steadily in the past few years. If bread costs more, so will entertainment, whether you go to specific shows or pay for digital entertainment that comes in the form of subscription services.
“The change to Apple Music is due to an increase in licensing costs, and in turn, artists and songwriters will earn more for the streaming of their music,” Apple told USA Today. “We also continue to add innovative features that make Apple Music the world’s best listening experience.”
Similarly, Apple explained that the extensive selection of Apple TV Plus programming led to the price hike.
As for Apple One bundles, they include plenty of additional services that Apple might be paying more money to keep online. After all, Apple’s data centers run on energy, and energy prices have been going up.
If you can already find the money for an Apple Music, Apple TV Plus, and/or Apple One subscription, you’ll surely be able to spare the extra $10 to $36 that Apple will charge you for a year of use.
Sure, some people can’t take the hit, which is unfortunate. But most people who buy iPhones can also afford the price hikes. Just think of the silliest purchases you made this year, amounting to between $10 and $36. Any of the three subscriptions above should bring more value than that.
How to save money on Apple subscriptions
Also, prices for other online services have gone up recently. Netflix raised prices in January. Disney followed in August with price hikes for Disney Plus, Hulu, and ESPN+. But the same logic applies. If you can spare the extra change, it’s worth keeping the subscriptions.
Ultimately, it’s up to the user to decide which services they should keep. It might not make sense to have multiple streaming service options active if you’re not using all of them. And you can save money by cutting a Netflix, Disney Plus, or Apple TV Plus subscription here and there.
But if you’re really looking to save money on Apple’s subscriptions now that prices have gone up, there are ways to do it.
The simplest thing you could do is move your subscriptions to Family plans. This will let you share access with more people in your family or group of friends and split the costs. Another alternative is going for annual payments where you can, to save some money.
The better solution is going for the Apple One subscription. It’s costlier, but it includes access to Apple Music, Apple TV Plus, Apple Arcade, and 200GB of iCloud Plus storage.
Go for the Premier tier, and you get 2TB of cloud storage and access to News Plus and Fitness Plus. And Premier also lets you share with up to five other people.
By going Apple One, you can ditch your standalone Apple Music and Apple TV Plus subscription and weather the storm better. Ditching all of Apple’s services in response to the price hike will hurt you more than Apple.
More Apple coverage: Check out the best Apple deals online right now.
