The price of an individual YouTube Premium subscription is increasing by $2 to $13.99 per month in the US for new and current customers.
This price increase is live for new subscribers as seen on youtube.com/premium. Instead of $11.99, YouTube Premium now costs $13.99/month. Meanwhile, it’s $18.99 if you’re subscribing from the iOS YouTube app.
It’s just like the old adage that history repeats itself. All the streaming companies are starting to do the exact same damn thing cable did. They’re starting to bloat their own products and expense them completely out of normal working schmoes price bracket.
The early 2000s was Paradise for cord cutters. The whole purpose of moving away from cable was the smaller individualized payments. Now if I want to watch all my shows legally I’m approaching cable tv package prices again. I’ll be damned if I ever get trapped into that cycle again. Now the streaming networks are bombarding us with advertisements that compare the cable was when I cut cord 20 years ago. And they’re slowly getting worse.
Still better than cable ever was. No long term contracts, extra fees on bills, tons of useless channels and tons of ads.
I think people forget how bad cable TV actually is if they haven’t used it for a while.
The month to month contracts for streaming content will go away soon.
I don’t see the value in complaining about things that haven’t happened yet.
The general direction that streaming services have been taking in recent times is clear, though: Raising prices, locking down account sharing, splitting up the content across too many different providers and introducing advertisement in cheaper plans. Sounds pretty cable-y to me.
They’ll probably go the way other big subscription services like MS and Adobe are. Annual commitment with monthly payments of x.99 or no commitment with monthly pricing of y + x.99
I dislike that even more.
The early 2000s was before streaming was ever a thing. Netflix was still sending DVDs in the mail en masse.
I just canceled the Netflix account I have had since 2002.
They were great once…
“Not enough people are paying at $11.99. We need to charge more.”
Just because landlords think they can push through 16% price hikes doesn’t mean everyone got a 16% raise. So they’re trying to steer people from uBO by … enticing them with higher prices?
I think they know people who aren’t paying already won’t buy it, so they are raising prices on those that found enough value in it to use it. There is YouTube music bundled with it that some like, so seems like smart strategy to me.
In reality they are going to find the limit where paying customers are no longer willing to be.
I have revanced and newpipe, and was still willing to pay as I get a TON of value out of YouTube. Im totally willing to not pay if they insist, however 🙂
I need to have a serious talk about this with my girlfriend. I didn’t realize she was paying so much for our YT Premium plan.
These prices are getting ridiculous.
What are you guys getting for that money? I honestly don’t know. I just use either an ad blocker or the newpipe app.
It’s a global solution, not just localized to specific areas. No ads on my account on my Xbox, PS5, Switch, Google Home speakers (YouTube Music), Fire TV Stick, Android TV, Roku, my roommate’s Roku, or anyone else’s devices anywhere else, in addition to places like my phone and PC where I just use uBlock Origin.
In addition, I’m actually just splitting the family plan across three people, so it’s like $7.64/mo, which isn’t bad.
Yeah with that many devices that’s worth the ease of use for the price. I’m surprised they don’t block more than one device.
While ad blockers are definitely a thing, I’d also like my favorite channels to get paid. And, honestly, it has to make money somehow – it might as well be off my relatively stable back
I’m not so enamored with feeding the bloated behemoth that is Google but I do like the fact the revenue share with creators gets them more per view than they would with ad rolls. It’s a shame you still have to manually skip sponsorship sections on the mobile app.
I agree with you. In an ideal world, I would give 22 dollars to Patreon every month, they would scan my watch history and would distribute 20 dollars proportionally among the channels I watched without Google taking a cut.
Then Google could drop the price of premium instead of raising it and keep that whole fee.
That was the flattr model but it never really took off.
Wow, that’s actually exactly what I was wishing for. I think I’m going to toss in $10 and see how it goes
Does your ad blocker block ads for YouTube and YouTube Music apps on iOS?
I use safari with adguard + sponsor block which lets me airplay videos to the TV. I don’t even have the YouTube app installed. No need to try and set up smarttubenext or whatever on the TV.
Are you able to cast at 4k or 1080p? I used to have youtube premium but moved to the same setup on my phone; ad blocker, sponsor block, youtube mobile, cast to tv. My one issue is that the youtube player only lets me select up to 720p for stream quality, and that doesn’t look fantastic on a tv.
Looks like it is up to only 720p. Never been bothered by it myself for the type of content I’ve air played. Not ideal for movies or TV shows though.
I tend to only listen to youtube videos and only cast them when I want to be able to see the images, since I mostly watch history videos.
I did notice the other day that with an iPad I can select 1080p, which is perfect! I’m not sure what exactly is causing the difference, maybe youtube sees safari on an iPad as different somehow, but that’s solved my one little issue I had.
I guess you need an Apple TV for that as well?
Airplay seems pretty useless to me overall as I don’t have anything it seems to want to connect with. Sadly.
My TV has airplay support built into it so I haven’t needed to get an Apple TV. But you do need an Apple device to use Airplay.
Yeah have lots of apple devices but never a TV with airplay. They all seem to have Chromecast where I live.
Guess I’m buying the wrong TVs :)
What brand do you have? If they have Android TV they seem to usually have airplay support too, but you need to go into settings and then get your Apple device paired with the TV to get airplay to start working.
For YouTube, uYou+ blocks ads and sponsors.
For YouTube Music, YouTubeMusicUltimate blocks ads and sponsors, too.
Anyone can sideload those relatively easily. Still, if you don’t want to bother with this, you can find apps on the AppStore that do pretty much the same thing, like Yattee or Video Lite (there’s a paid subscription for this one but if you block ads at the DNS level you won’t see anything.)
The big part for us is the multiple users, and not under a single home location.
My girlfriend, myself, her kid, adult daughter. That ends up being a fairly decent value proposition considering we’re pretty invested in Apple devices. There aren’t a lot of solutions to remove ads, and we take advantage of both the music and video sides of things.
I never even considered using for a family account. That’s smart.
ReVanced, ReVanced Extended and uBlock Origin will always be free :)
I’m unfamiliar but just read a bit. Are updates to the apk manual? Does the android app sync to a browser or desktop version?
Yeah the updates are provided manually by people who build them, or if you do it yourself. What do you mean by sync?
Of course they are. Because literally everyone and everything is screwing all of us who aren’t super rich.
“We need to be inflation winners”
Actual line from the C-level strategy meeting at my company.
I’m fairly certain we’re not alone.
Next; let’s talk about how recessions are made….
People tell me oh youtube prem is reasonable but I know that yt is just going to raise the price bit by bit and everyone will accept it because they have no other option.
because they have no other option.
I dunno, Piped has been a very good other option for me.
Don’t forget NewPipe for Android, Yattee for Apple devices, SmartTube for most Android TV boxes, Playlet for Roku, and Invidious for PC (if you don’t like Piped).
The only (usable) platform I can think of without a ad-free YouTube client is maybe webOS for LG TVs.
(some of these clients are also missing some features because they are new, but they should all be better for watching than the official app)
I just tried installing SmartTube on my Chromecast Ultra today and found out it can pair with YouTube revanced. This fixed my number one issue with revanced where the cast button is not working.
Omg really? Does that mean I can finally watch YouTube videos on my Nvidia shield again? I have to try this out now!
You can enable it from settings -> remote control in SmartTube app. Also, if you’re using YouTube revanced, the cast button might be hidden because it was not functional. You can re-enable the cast button on YouTube revanced from revanced settings.
When casting a video, you’ll have to open the SmartTube app in your Android TV first because it’s not automatically launched when you hit the cast button in YouTube revanced. If it’s in the background or not yet running, the video won’t play.
Got it installed and running. So nice to finally be able to watch YouTube on the TV again.
Also don’t forget https://github.com/revanced it even has a manager for updates.
That too! I just don’t use it myself because I find NewPipe works well enough for me. However, I should still try it out eventually to see if I’m missing anything big.
Front ends aren’t really an alternative option. You are still using youtube. Youtube will continue to try and stop ad blockers and shutdown these Frontends. Eventually they will be successful. The more inconvenient they make it to use these technologies the more people will pay for yt prem. The only option is to start making the very painful switch to alternative platforms.
Even twitch has work around so they are welcomed to keep trying until they are successful.
What is the workaround for twitch?
Here’s one https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/apk-mod-5-0-twitchmod-twitch-app-modification.4129481/page-8
I don’t watch twitch so I can’t attest to its effectiveness.
thank you for sharing, also that seems like a helpful site in general!
When unlock stopped working on Twitch I watched everything in multistream. No ads lol
As with all monopolies/cartels/prohibitions unsatisfied demand always finds alternatives. If the rules get in the way people circumvent them. Youtube premium price increases will create a bigger demand for ad blocking. Just as the balkanisation of streaming services and reduced value will return many people to piracy. The people who run these organisations are idiots who destroy brands and shareholder value to get short term attention and bonuses.
Youtubes changes are successful. Less people use ad blocker and more people are using yt premium.
There’s so many people who dont want to constantly keep looking for work around and having their sites break etc. Once one person in their family buys yt premium then it makes sense for them to get a family plan.
My issue isn’t with youtube running ads or charging for their service. My gripe is that they built their website as a free ad based service and out competed everything else based on that. Then they slowly ramped up ads and monetization once they had a monopoly and they won’t stop squeezing.
In my eyes the only ethical solution is a distributed competitor where users can pay for the service of streaming videos but can’t be forced into a single vendor. For example if one peertube instance started charging to much then you could move to another.
I pay for Nebula but watch nebula creators on Youtube. Watching on Youtube boosts them in the algorithm and gives them a small share of premium and it is more discoverable. The problem with distributed alternatives is that using them would disadvantage creators on youtube which is their primary outlet. We may need to concede that unlike Reddit or Twitter that clearly can and should be replaced by distributed alternatives, Youtube has proven to be a natural monopoly and as such needs to be regulated to protect consumers and creators from monopolistic abuses.
I dont know how people would switch off youtube. Youtube would need to shoot itself in the head or even a chance of people leaving the platform. Maybe creators could unionize or a new form of media could dethrone it.
When I tried Odysee I also did the same. I subscribed and viewed the videos on odysee but would pause and watch on youtube to save odysee bandwith and ensure that the creators I like that are pretty small wouldnt be hurt.
Is there really anything you would benefit from with premium? Its sooo easy to find other content for free elsewhere and use YT ad free is basically one-click on a normal computer.
It helps support creators more than ads, at least on an individual level; a portion of your subscription goes to the creators that you actually watch, or at least that’s what I’ve heard. Other than that, just YouTube Music and higher bitrate playback.
I wish some of that money found its way to small youtubers who don’t qualify for monetization and are just uploading for the fun of it. Those youtubers are my favorite since it feels more like the old YouTube or stuff like lemmy or whatever where people share without expectation of anything back other than just being excited.
It’d be really nice if a peertube instance was easier to setup individually and had built-in donation support. Some non-mainstream folks would probably appreciate the option for a more cozy and intimate platform they could set up as they please.
They could set up a ko-fi or some other type of donation
I don’t think they are uploading expecting anything back, or an expectation that their channel will get big. Which is what makes their content feel more old school to begin with.
You probably can, but I’m lazy ;) I like it. Got the family one so everybody in my house can use it. We listen to a LOT of music on youtube music in my house, and a few of the others like watching cooking shows and silly junk on youtube. There’s some pretty decent content. You can get by with ad blockers and stuff, but since I use the music app in my car and at work I prefer not to deal with all that.
For most people, there’s probably not much reason to pay for it.
Edit: Not happy with the constant price hikes though. It seems like the bump the price by a little every year or two.
Yeah. Similar over here. If it was just me, I would be fine to find alternatives and/or blockers, but me, spouse, and kids… on different devices the ad time adds up.
This price increase sucks though.
This price increase sucks though.
Yes it does :\ Lucky for us it doesn’t seem to affect the family package. They raised the price on that last year.
Here’s hoping they don’t raise the price of that plan too.
Watching YouTube on the TV without ads and at higher resolution
I’ve yet to be made aware of any benefits at all. None of what you get from premium is either interesting or relevant.
Depends on how much you pay for data. For my german mobile contract it is very nice to have content available offline. And the play in the background thing is very nice depending on the kind of video you wanna watch. I can see how those features aren’t the new sliced bread but they have their use cases
Those features make sense for people who mostly use mobile, however the price increases make it a lot less appealing even then. At some point people will realize they are paying more to play a video in the background or without ads than for netflix/disney or whatever people like these days.
I got put into Youtube Premium when Google Play Music merged, so I think of it as equivalent to Spotify premium, but also: you can also upload your own music library, you get ads removed on Youtube videos, and offline play for both music and videos.
It’s decently worth it if you reference Spotify Premium’s cost (and also I’ve been at 9.99USD/mo this whole time and not been hit with any price increases at all for some reason?)
YouTube has almost every song already, blocking ads is stupidly easy, and creating and sharing playlists is simple too.
Thats Spotify Premium already. For free.
Not to mention how easy it is to
yt-dlpa playlist and have it for offline. It blows my mind what people are willing (or really able) to waste money on.Spotify I use ublock origin and that flawlessly blocks ads on spotify. Been using it for about a year now without dropping a dime
Dude. Good to know, thanks
I’ll continue to pay for it… it’s the only streaming service that I consider essential to pay for. I’ll dump everything else before I dump this.
I am very selective with what I watch but even so the amount of good content on youtube exceeds my available time while other services have a couple of shows a year to binge and then they can be dropped. With writers and actors striking conventional content is only going to get thinner for the other streaming services. There is a limit to what I will pay for a painless ad free experience for the whole family on all their devices and Youtube is rapidly approaching it.
The funny thing is that I used to have YouTube premium bundled with Google play music, but I had to cancel after they killed it. YouTube music was just a terrible experience coming after GPM (lost a lot of songs in transfer, unable to play only liked songs by certain artists, uploaded music locked in jail and unable to be mixed into playlists, etc…). I felt like I had to voice my complaint by canceling YouTube music, which I could only do by getting rid of YouTube premium as well. How else do you protest a product that got bundled onto something else you already used? Anyway, I would buy a cheaper premium tier if it didn’t include useless YouTube music.
Same. I used GPM, then when they added YouTube Premium, I used that too. When they killed GPM in favor of YTM, I dropped the entire service.
Same here.
I use YouTube all the time and was legitimately thinking of subscribing to premium. Guess I’m sticking to ReVanced lol
Oh no they remembered that us grandfathered in google music subscribers exist, so we’re getting a $4/mo price increase
damn, i’ve been coasting on that for ages
Worst thing to do if they’re also trying to block adblockers.
It’s weird that it costs so much when some streaming services are cheaper and they can afford to create content and youtube just pays its content creators a tiny bit of ad revenue.
Probably because it helps a bit to offset their high losses for infrastructure (servers, bandwidth, storage, compute for compression, search, indexing and backups, electricity, networking, employee wages)
To be fair YouTube pays them more for premium subscriber views.
Yeah, I can’t disagree honestly. The Disney+/Hulu/ESPN ad free bundle is like $20/month usd.
Um, I’ve been paying $15.99. When was it $11?
You’ve been paying the Apple Tax!
Did you buy it through the iOS app? Because they are 30% more.
Very thankful I was grandfathered in with my the original promo price for google play music.
Existing subscribers will start to see the new pricing with their next billing cycle. An upcoming email will explain the changes. Those who were grandfathered in five years ago (with Google Play Music and/or YouTube Red) will get three additional months at their current rate.
Wow that’s a huge bummer.
9 to 5 google is the only publication with this information. I mean I use it, but I can live without YouTube.
Yep, you are correct and it sucks.
