Google has quietly increased the price of YouTube Premium by a significant $2 from $12 to $14, according to the updated signup page spotted by 9to5Google. The annual price jumped to $20, from $120 to $140 per month, a savings of about $28 over paying month-by-month. YouTube also increased the price of Music Premium from $10 to $11 per month, matching similar increases by Apple and Amazon. The price increases weren’t accompanied by any kind of official announcement.
On top of eliminating ads, YouTube Premium offers features like offline viewing and background playback (without it, your video will stop playing when the app is minimized or your phone screen is off). It also allows higher-quality 1080p streaming on some platforms.
Last year, Google hiked the family Premium plan to $23 per month, and charged existing month-by-month subscribers the new fee the following month. Previously, the company was more generous — when it rebranded YouTube Red to Premium in 2018, it kept the former’s $10 price for subscribers and is still honoring it for some users, according to 9to5Google.
At the same time that it’s boosting prices, YouTube has been cracking down on ad-blockers that lets you view videos without ads. Some users have seen a pop-up indicating YouTube will block their ability to play videos unless they disable their ad blocker or whitelist the site. “Ads allow YouTube to stay free for billions of users worldwide,” it reads. To go ad-free, the company tells users to get a YouTube Premium subscription so “creators can still get paid.”
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