Just over a month after officially announcing its two new subscription services, Google launched YouTube Music and YouTube Premium on Monday across seventeen countries. If you missed the announcement in May, YouTube Music is a paid service similar to Spotify and Apple Music, giving subscribers access to millions of songs and thousands of playlists on demand. Eventually, YouTube Music will replace Google Play Music altogether.
You can listen to songs on YouTube Music for free, but you’ll have to deal with ads. If you want to go ad-free, you can sign up for YouTube Music Premium for $9.99 a month, or $14.99 a month for a family plan with up to six total users. For a limited time though, you can take a test drive with a three-month free trial of YouTube Music Premium.
In addition to the new site, Google has also launched a redesigned YouTube Music app on iOS and Android. You can use the app without a Premium subscription, but once again, there will be ads. Lots and lots of ads. Plus, you will not be able to leave the app and listen to just the audio. It’s fairly restrictive without a subscription.
In addition to the launch of YouTube Music, Google has also replaced YouTube Red with YouTube Premium (which is not the same as YouTube Music Premium, confusingly). YouTube Premium gives you access to all the original shows and movies the service has to offer in addition to the benefits of Music Premium. Basically, this is the full package of everything YouTube has to offer, with access to original content and no ads anywhere.
YouTube Premium costs $11.99 a month, or $17.99 a month for the family plan. There’s a three-month free trial for Premium as well, and all current YouTube Red and Google Play Music subscribers will receive access to YouTube Premium automatically at the same price they’re currently paying in some countries.
